


Marelle

by SiryyGray



Series: A Hop, Skip, and a Jump [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Injury, Mystery, No Romance, Parallel Universes, Parental Riza Hawkeye, Parental Roy Mustang, Post-Promised Day, Pretend it makes sense, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, WWII references, listen im trying to bridge the logic gap between two separate universes with different rules, playing fast and loose with alchemy, you know i keep that mf tag ON ME
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiryyGray/pseuds/SiryyGray
Summary: Edward is still stranded in the wrong Amestris. He’s surrounded by people he knew and would rather take off than put up with them all, but the Elric-Mustang-Rockbell alliance is persistent if nothing else.He goes along with it. Begrudgingly.Maybe one Elric wasn’t enough to break the laws of space and time, but three? Who knows.Or03 Ed grabs the world by the ankles and shakes while familiar faces beat it with a broom until answers start falling out.It’s the Capra sequel. Buckle up.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Edward Elric & Team Mustang, Edward Elric & Winry Rockbell
Series: A Hop, Skip, and a Jump [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865245
Comments: 90
Kudos: 135





	1. Hinkelen

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Discussion of death. Disassociation. Implied/ referenced trauma and PTSD.

The sun was going down. Ed zeroed his attention on a spare set of screws that could lock together when twisted just right, turning them over and running a finger across the ridges like that was somehow important. He blinked out over the landscape, taking in the serenity for the hundredth time that day and finding no silhouette upon the horizon that wasn’t a tree or fencepost. There was a storm, though. It broiled behind the countryside and promised a downpour worthy of floods and sandbags.

“Is he still over there?”

“Leave it.”

“It’s going to rain soon.” Ed wanted to tell Winry that he _knew_ it was going to rain. He’d been able to feel it all day long, a steady ache through his leg and some sympathetic pins and needles across his right arm. He heard Winry sigh. “It’s been _days_ , you know.”

“It’s none of our business.” Ed replied.

“What if something happens?”

He scoffed humorlessly and the screw gave a metallic little screech. “Like what? People don’t come back from the dead. Nothing will happen.”

Her weight shifted over the wooden steps, but she didn’t say a word, making no move to sit beside him. She just hovered with tension bubbling up in heavy droves. “Ed… you know that wasn’t what I meant."

Ed nodded. The metal clicked into place with a low scraping noise. He split them apart just as fast and let his hands mindlessly work to do it again. “I know.”

“He’s been out there for ages. I’m just worried is all.”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

Winry was right, of course. She often was with things like this. It had been four days since Edward had turned up in a field of spun gold and half grown wheat, thoroughly driving a wrecking ball through all of their lives and then somehow reversing their sympathies in the most impossible of ways. Like redirecting a river to run uphill. Four days and they had all hardly even seen him.

Not for lack of trying, though.

Everyone had taken a moment to let the gravity of all this sink in and felt the crushing, almost cruel need to offer up their help, but it really was like searching for a single water drop in a thunderstorm. Edward seemed to blip in and out of reality as he pleased and whatever someone tried to find him—typically to chuck a meal or a goddamn glass of water at the guy because it was very easy to be overtaken by the grandma-urge to make him less gaunt and bloodless—he would disappear amongst the folds of grass and tombs.

What's a dead man in a graveyard anyways? Just a neighbour, surely.

Besides all that, Ed had made the executive decision (never mind that he isn’t an executive of any kind) to deter everyone else from bothering Edward. It really was none of their business.

Ed knew that whatever form of grief had hit his parallel like a bullet to the back, terrible, ironic phrasing aside, it was something that should happen in private. He told them to leave it be and wait.

Al could tell he knew a little more than they did. Which, yeah okay, he did. But it wasn’t information that had been willingly imparted on him.

The brief flashes of memories were entirely unintentional and a horrifying invasion of privacy that Ed didn’t know how to stop. Guilt decided to make a home in his chest and he thought it best to keep everyone away. Al could always, always, _always_ tell when he was holding back, but his younger brother also had fistfuls of tact in every pocket. He didn’t press or pry, but patiently knocked his head against a table or wall whenever it got too full of thoughts. 

Winry had alway been a bit more hands on. Ed could hear the way her nails picked and prodded at buttons and loose strings. He had half a mind to pass her the screws so she didn’t accidentally ruin another sweater.

“Do you know why he’s out there? I mean, why a _graveyard?”_ She asked. “He knows he’s welcome to use one of the spare rooms… right?”

Ed held the metal twists between two fingers and rolled them along his palm. “It’s none of our business.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.” He turned to meet her eyes.

She was chewing at her lip and, as suspected, about the yank at a thread that held the cuffs of her sleeve in place. “I know you want to help, but just… give it a little time, yeah? This can’t be easy for him.” He tossed her the set of screws. 

Winery caught them without even paying attention. “It’s not easy for any of us.”

“Being alone helps sometimes.”

“I know that.”

He raised an eyebrow as the unsaid word drifted through the air. Ed took it upon himself to oh so graciously fill in the blank. “But…?” He prompted.

Winry shrugged helplessly. “But hasn’t he been alone long enough?”

 _Snap_ goes the metal as it latches onto its partner. _Snap_ goes Ed’s resolve. _Snap_ goes Winry’s tone. “No one can deal with everything alone.”

She meant more than just the four days, of course. It was the three years spent in another world surrounded by a vague, unimaginable, indescribable war. It was the months stuck here, perpetually chasing the sunset because the dark fucking _sucks_ and trying to stay under the radar. 

He huffed and returned his attention to the road. Something glinted in a dull, hazy flicker of motion. “It’s none of our business.”

After four and a half days, their new shadow finally reappeared like a ghost in a doorway. He’d been doing one hell of a job avoiding each and every one of them—though that had gotten a bit simpler once those of them in the military tipped their hats and made for a local hotel, still returning through the day for the pilfering of food—up until the moment he plainly told them that there was going to be a train headed toward Central the next morning.

He also made a point to remind them that they were not obligated to tag along.

He implied more strongly than anything that he would prefer if they didn’t, but the brigade of mismatched sock-adjacent people were nothing if not stubborn. The words were met with a few glares and Edward held up his hands in surrender.

“Just saying.” He said. “You’re sticking your necks out for no reason.”

Ed swore he heard a scoff. “ _No reason.”_ He couldn’t pinpoint who said it, but his non-existent money was on Mustang.

Even so, with the biting remark and accusatory tone, the Colonel knew how to read a room better than Ed would ever give him credit for and filed out alongside Hawkeye, Havoc, and Breda. Al looked frustrated. Ed could only feel sympathetic and was ready to let it slide once more because _honestly_ , who was he to say anything about this? 

Edward had started back down the road to whatever rock bottom he’d taken up as a place to dwell and the _snap_ came again. Winry had been toying with those screws since Ed handed them over and now they were clattering against the wooden floors while she made for the door.

“Wait—“ He tried.

Ed didn’t have fast enough reflexes to grab her before she said anything damning but apparently he didn’t have to. Because instead of her shouting out her frustration, good natured and brash, the voices were soft.

He exchanged a glance with Al and waited, leaning forward to eavesdrop in the most polite way possible. One word cut above the rest. “Please?”

It was all lost from there and Ed was silently cheering on the victory as he and Al scrambled to look less incriminated. Winry walked through the front door with a smile on her face and Edward’s sleeve in her hand.

“I’m pretty sure this counts as kidnaping.” He looked _so_ exasperated but there was the little, barely there sliver of acceptance. Maybe it was ease or relief, who the hell knows. Reading one's own expression was a bit harder than anticipated. Edward sent a flat glare to the other two Elric’s—god help them all the _other two_ Elric’s. “Help.”

“Hard pass.”

“Dammit.”

Ed was pretty sure the sleep that Edward got was limited to blinks, but when the house trembled from a wash of thunder and pitch black rain screamed down the windows, he was glad that Winry was stubborn and that _someone_ in the house was a tea-monger. 

* * *

The thunder had curled up and tucked itself away by morning, but there were still the occasional spots of rain. Riza caught Ed kneading at his leg more than once as their train pulled up, took a generous pause to let them board, and then screeched onward. Automail tended to disagree with storms and atmospheric upheaval, the afflictions ranging from dull aches to violent sickness. 

_He,_ however, stayed perfectly still. _The—_

No. That’s not right.

Mentally, she had to slap herself more than once. It was instinct, after all, to say _the double._ Or _the_ _doppelgänger_. Or even _the other Ed_. This was an entire, living breathing person and it wasn’t fair of her to think otherwise. 

Edward Elric. A second one, sure, but that was still who he was and no amount of mind-gymnastics or burying her head under a pillow was going to change that. Riza was rather ashamed to say that for five mornings in a row she’d woken up hoping it was just a bizarre dream. 

It wasn’t.

He was real. Edward was real, sitting not far from her on a stiff seat. It took the Colonel all of ten minutes to retreat into whichever car held the culinary staff, both Havoc and Breda in tow because, really, what else should she expect? Riza had given him a hard glare and silently promised that _this_ —alongside his newfound tendency to avoid Edward like a snail avoiding salt—would be brought up later when she had the freedom to grill him.

For now, she kept her mouth shut and let the sharp expression fade.

The morning remained shy and bashful throughout the rumbling, murmured complaints of old tracks being ravaged by freshly squealing wheels.

Riza did all she could not to stare, but her eyes tended to drift.

The traitorous, clever thing they were, moving on their own accord over to their newest newest addition, glasses repaired with a muted clap and perched on the bridge of his nose, thumbing his way through some dense book that's contents firmly flew a good mile over her head.

Ed, from time to time, leaned over, peered at the neglect-dusted tome and would point something out. Edward—that is, a replica of the one she knew but titled on an axis and more distant than Amestris from open water—debunked more than a few of the statements in the book without so much as batting an eye. He muttered something about how physics were easy to bend; easy to twist. She couldn’t help but see some of the differences as they presented themselves. 

It was subtle in some ways, like how Edward’s voice was exponentially quieter and more careful, like he was worried someone would be listening in while Ed took full advantage of the fact that this early train meant an empty car.

One was casually open, his legs propped up against a parallel bench, sprawled gracelessly, the other had one knee pulled up to his chest and leaned into the corner like a lost animal searching for shade. It was odd but… telling. In a way she wasn’t particularly fond of, but telling all the same. 

“So what about if the angle is changed? Couldn’t that fix all the—” Ed waved vaguely. “— _problems_ with this?”

“Well it’s not that simple, but I don’t know. Maybe.”

“ _Shouldn’t_ you know this?”

Edward’s glare was much softer. That was another difference. Should she start up a list? Just to keep track of the ticks and trends, the way his words would lean too hard into a few syllables and then flick across others. It would come in handy, especially assuming that this… _arrangement_ wasn’t exactly short term. He’d been in that other place for years, after all. Who's to say it wouldn’t be the same here?

Bottom line was that his glare was softer. Sanded down by time or kindness or cruelty. “I’m not omnipotent, I just studied this stuff. Most of it was theory anyways cause no ones figured out how to undo gravity all the way. There’s limits to it.” 

Ed settled his chin against his folded arms and they lapsed back into silence. Again, her eyes decided to go on a little road trip, touring the car like politeness was something she never knew in the first place. They landed on Winry. A little thought prodded at the back of her mind: both her and the younger girl had seen Edward. Before they’d properly caught up and watched—with a mix of horror and uncertainty—as he bled crimson into gold, they had traded words. It was something that had never fully left her mind, even when they were tossing around theories about homunculus or some kind of hollowed out clone. She’d seen a _human_ in East City, back when this all started, and it struck her viciously enough to rattle her heart.

“Undo gravity.” Ed mused.

“It’ll happen sooner or later. They’re already halfway there.” He seemed to always be far off. Riza was familiar with being held at arm's length but this was another league of distance.

Alphonse took notes as discreetly as he could and eventually Riza’s patience dwindled because it was _so quiet._ Even with the clipped, sparse conversation, it was oh so _still_ and listless. The woman was an observer in most cases, someone who was perfectly content viewing a discussion or lashing of friendly words as they played out, and washed in tenseless flows.

Normally she could appreciate a solid, warming silence, but this was so stilted and uncertain it made her skin crawl. It wasn’t comfortable enough to steep in, just daunting enough to make her resign to the itching swarms of ants that prickled and teased at her skin. It was best to just get these things over with, in her experience. Rip off the something or other. Her tolerance for discomfort vanished down a drain pipe.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

Edward’s eyes darted to her hands before reaching her lapels where uniform was spread against her collar. They took another split second to reach her face. Another point for the list. “Uh, sure. What is it?” 

“Why did you run off?” 

He blinked, nonplussed. “Why did I what?”

“In East City.” She explained. “Months back, you took off. What for?”

His gaze once again took a moment to lock onto her uniform. Riza was sure to keep her fingers clasped together in her lap.

It was almost palpable—they way Edward clammed up, his form stiffening and mouth pressed shut, discretion strung tightly in tandem with a whole host of criticalness. It was recognizable, too. She could see him forcing his coiled frame to relax, hands flattened, and tear his focus from the military blues. Edward shrugged like there weren’t bricks weighing down every movement. “Why wouldn’t I have?”

Ed raised an eyebrow, piping up from where he sat, parallel to his own reflection but still giving a respectable distance. “I was wondering about that too, actually.” He made a slow, rolling gesture. “I mean, they would’ve helped, you know.”

The book fell shut with a light brush of old pages being squashed against one another, thin as cellophane and brittle as her own self control that barred questions from jumping out. “They wouldn’t have.” Edward told them. He sounded indifferent. 

Which, Riza supposed, was better than the overpowering skittishness of days earlier. She frowned at him questioningly and, after a quick standoff, he broke away and sighed. “Do you honestly think you would’ve believed me?” 

It made her mind come to a halt. She wanted to say yes.

 _Yes_ , of course she would have believed him. _Yes_ , she would have helped this kid who seemed to be walking with a ball and chain around his ankle. _Yes,_ she would have seen the humanity in his face before any panic took over and _yes_ , she would have done whatever possible to keep the government off his tail. She really wanted to say yes, but his expression caught her attention.

It was tried and resigned. He didn’t want to be here still, a slight grimace pulling at his mouth and making his jaw twitch. Exhaustion ringed him like a painful halo.

The three others were jumping valiantly to her undeserved defence. Ed crossed his arms. “Okay, I get that the Colonel is a jerk, but the Lieutenant—“

“—wouldn’t have believed me.” Edward cut him off calmly. He wore a wane little smile that didn’t crack or splinter.

Riza looked him up and down again. His wrist sat at the ready, waiting to make a grab for _something_. 

“That’s pretty harsh.” Winry said. The tracks grumbled beneath them and the windows buzzed in their metal frames. “I don’t think they’d leave you out to dry like that.”

Once more, his tone was distilled down to a fine dust of apathy. It flew down casually and settled over her in a thick coat. “I don’t know what to tell you, then. It’s safer to be harsh.”

“It’s not really fair.” Al’s face was a little coiled up. Maybe a little hurt. Of course it was; he was probably taking this far more personally than he should. She was working from an outside perspective, and even with only a couple of disparate shards, she could see some of the reasoning. 

This had nothing to do with them and everything to do with what Edward had already lived through. Everything to do with all the details he’d very plainly omitted from his explanations that they, in no way, were entitled to. Those stories—memories, traumas, joys, what have you—belonged to him and him alone. It wasn’t their place to seek out words from someone else’s mouth. Riza could understand that better than most.

It was a symptom of grief and curse of guilt that would sit in a myriad of hooks and sharp edges, waiting for anyone who was being battered with whatever baggage they’d been saddled with to lose their footing and fall into the bloodbath. It wasn’t always so graphic and extreme, of course, but there came a certain melodrama with the words war and death. Riza didn’t doubt that he kept things hidden away for both his own sake and theirs. 

Yet here she was, wondering anyways. 

“Lost of stuff isn’t fair.” He said.

Al’s expression became lined with grief. “To all of _us_ , I mean. Could’ve just explained, right? Had evidence?”

Edward’s eyes were downcast and absent. His right hand moved in a quick, practiced motion. Like some kind of test or exercise, each finger tapping against his thumb over and over. His shoulders remained tensed even when he sighed, shaking his head. “Listen, none of you would have believed me. _I wouldn’t have believed me._ I’m not holding it against you, but it’s true.”

“Still—“

She wanted to say yes, seeing him now and with a few more pieces of the puzzle at the ready. But… lying wasn’t something she has ever been too fond of. Best to just get things over with, right? 

Riza took a measured breath. “No, he’s right.” 

“ _Thank you.”_ Edward shot her an approving smile, but it was rather performative.

Riza acknowledged the rest with a curt, but not unkind look. “We’ve all been a bit paranoid ever since what happened with the senior staff. Even besides that, everyone is the military is on guard, even when there's nothing happening.” She glanced back to Edward. “I don’t really blame you for being cautious.”

“Don’t go beating yourself up over it. I couldn’t care less, kind of used to it by now anyways.” He said with a wave. “Gotta say, though. You guys were fuckin’ _persistent_.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Ed threw on a devilish glint and smug grin. Edward scoffed in turn. Again, it wasn’t nearly as brash or smug as it should be. In a quick motion, he folded his glasses and stuck them in a fold, sewn to the inside of his jacket. His eyes were the same colour as Ed’s.

Startlingly so.

He paused and gave them all a dubious glance. “Was it even _legal?_ I can’t imagine anyone would be too pleased with wasting military resources on chasing a ghost.”

Riza almost chuckled. “It wasn’t _illegal_ , necessarily.”

“Well that’s not cryptic or anything.”

She made a small gesture, two fingers held parallel. “Kept it quiet, just in case. Might’ve bent the truth here and there.” _Bent_ was a pretty mild way to put it. A professional contortionist pretzeling fact into a spun tapestry was closer to the reality of the situation. A contortion act that was still in progress too—Mustang had wearily called in to speak with Falman, got him up to speed and learned that they had about two weeks worth of cover left before Eastern Command went griping and whining about the absent Brigadier General and his gaggle of headstrong subordinates.

Edward nodded, eyes tugged by an unseen force to the ground, but didn’t respond. The train lulled absently, a high pitched whistle drawing a sharp twitch through the air. Shamelessly, all four of them leaned in, waiting. 

Waiting and waiting like perhaps fireworks would shoot off if their gazes turned fiery and ignited some fuse. “Would you all cut that out?” Edward snapped.

In unison, they looked away. Riza heard a soft apology voiced from Al, his hand pulling sheepishly at a few rouge strands of hair. Riza followed suit. “Sorry, that was—“

“No, it’s fine. Like, I get it. This is all crazy for you guys.” He spoke like someone who held wisdom in a chalice. It suddenly occurred to her that, even through some warped technicalities of time and space that she couldn’t really wrap her head around, Edward was the oldest amongst the children. In spirit and in mind. 

“And it’s not for you?” Riza inquired. She shifted a little to face him, making it less of a sidelong glance and more of a proper conversation. 

“Eh, not really. Not anymore. This is the second time it’s happened, and besides that, I had, what? Two and a half months to myself? You’re all fresh off the world-jumping boat. It’s stupid and ridiculous, I get it believe me, but it gets… less weird.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Al’s head tilted. “So, what? Were there other versions of everyone over in…” He faltered, shooting a look to Edward.

His eyebrows crept up. “Europe.”

“Yeah. Did you run in to anyone you already knew?”

Edward stiffened again, rigid with the same full body frozenness as before. “No with an asterisk.” He set down the book from where it had previously been pressed in the crook of his left arm. “Even if I did recognize someone on the other side, it’s not all that exciting. They wouldn’t suddenly know me.” Edward said slowly. “Same face, different person.”

He was coldest towards Al, she noted to herself. He dodged his gaze like it would run him through and respond in clipped words, shoulder turned and lips tight.

To her surprise, it was Ed who cast an admonishing look at the younger, shaking his head in a warning. Now, Riza wasn’t fluent in _Elric_ , but if she had to guess, it was something along the lines of _hey dumbass hush up._

Again, she’s not fluent, but Al did, in fact, cross his arms and drop the matter. Edward’s eyes were darting between the two and she didn’t doubt he was reading their every twitch and tilt, cataloguing the private language like it was his own and decoding the micro-movements. What were the odds he’d done the same with his own brother? Math had never been her area of expertise, but wouldn’t hesitate to bet on the presumption. 

Riza spoke before the traded volleys of words died down. The ice was still too thick and despite the lessened pressure from before, so she hefted and verbal pickaxe. “So you don’t actually know if there was anyone there?”

“Educated guess. If all the crap on string theory holds water—which apparently it does—“ He gestured to himself with an air of flippancy. “—then so long as the circumstances were right, the same people would exist. Also…” Edward shot a hesitant look to his counterpart. He shrugged in response.

“Also…?” Winry prompted.

“Well there was a _third_ problem causer.”

Al’s mouth dropped open and Riza felt her own eyes blow a little wider. “Was?”

“Third?”

“ _Problem causer?!_ ” Ed yelped indignity.

“That’s being charitable.” Winry murmured.

“She’s right you know.” Edward said flatly. 

Ed gapped. “You traitor.”

He held up his hands in surrender and both Riza and Al gained an oligopoly on critical thinking, or so it seemed. “Wait, wait, wait.” Al hunched forward. “There _was_ a third one of you? Or… both of you?”

“Was.” He agreed. “Past tense.”

They leapfrogged to another topic and the train car seemed less dull and stained.

An iceberg cracked away into a floe. Then another. Riza hadn’t even registered that the train car had felt colder than it should until it was suddenly becoming warmer, spotted with questions, answers, and an occasional joke.  
  
It was also a relief to find that no one was overstepping any bounds. It was a two way street, open to both their little party and Edward, but they held some mutual understanding that here and now was decidedly _not_ the time for unveiling grand truths, whether they be relevant or not. She trusted that Edward wouldn’t withhold anything critical.

He was cagey and giving them all wary looks like he practiced them on the daily, suspicion sewn to his collar and mistrust stitched right on his sleeve where his heart was suppose to be, yet the initial laundry list of cork board conspiracy plots he’d provided only drew blanks where it was _personal._ Where it was clear that something unpleasant had gone down. He had no obligation to tell them lest some part of his conscious decided otherwise. 

Riza _was_ curious, but it wasn’t her place. Never would be. She was content in complacency.

She watched the small group of kids— _kids_ , young too for crimes against reality—talk amongst themselves. Winry was vibrating in place when she finally got the chance to sink her teeth in whatever technologies existed in a coinciding future.

“Jet engine.” She repeated to herself almost dreamily, looking a touch glass-glazed, as she tended to whenever the mechanic side of her mind staged a coup against the rest of the operators.

“We’ve lost her.” Ed muttered. “She’s gonna be in an engineering coma for a week.”

Edward had a wiry, paper-thin smile, his gaze soft and more melancholic than anything else. “I didn’t even _mention_ how they made it.” He mused weakly.

Al actually laughed at that. “Speaking of things _we_ don’t know…” He trailed, eyebrows raised into a hopeful look. Edward made a motion for Al to continue. He straightened up a little. “How’d you get into all this? I mean, you said it’s all pretty new. Like that fancy microscope—”

“Electron.”

“—and whatever the hell digi-tal means.”

Edward’s mouth quirked. “It’s a physics machine.”

“If this was all super new advancements, then how’d you find out about them?” Al asked, picking himself up from the slumped shoulders and dizzied demeanour. “I mean, I guess there would be publications and all that, but those usually take a few years to get put out. Verifying the facts and whatnot. So…?”

Everyone else was distracted. Winry was already murmuring to herself about fuel and materials and god knows what else while Ed was out of tune, trying to break her out of the knowledge-induced fit with a hand waved over her eyes. Al’s gaze was focused down on his palms, splayed out like they had the words scrawled over them in some big impromptu tattoo. But Riza has always been an observer.

She could _see_.

A twitch in his hands and his expression going a bit severe before smoothing out. “I had a weird job.”

* * *

For some reason, it had taken a little convincing to let his newfound collection of _friends_ let him go off on his own, much to Edward’s… ‘chalance.

(Were they friends? Really? Maybe allies or vague, _I-knew-you-in-another-world-but-god-hates-my-ass-and-I’m-stuck-here: the sequel_ acquaintances. But that didn’t really roll off the tongue.)

“Train stations have MPs.” He stated. Because it was true and they, a group of military and ex-military personnel, save for Winry and Al’s devious little souls, should know that. “A bunch of commissioned officers are going to draw attention and _personally_ I’d rather not get arrested on arrival.”

They started to protest, turning to one another for support in their argument and Edward took that as his cue to alchemize a hole in the car floor and drop out onto the tracks before any of them realized he’d even clapped his hands. They could be mad about it later, his first priority was staying out of sight. 

It would also give him a much needed change to fucking _breathe._

They’d all been casual and polite enough—with Ed himself seeming to pick up on non-existent hints and clues on when to pivot the topic. But it was still disgustingly unnerving. Every time he’d fallen into a decent enough conversation, something sharp would lodge in his throat and guilt came in a downpour. It hurt, so he shut his mouth and reminded himself that this wasn’t _his_.

The feeling was relentless and it felt like a silent, explosive betrayal. Here he was, alive with a bunch of people that he cares about but it was all wrong.

He’d spent every damn night among the dead, studying the sky obsessively, trying in vain to chart down the bright, glowing marks and desperate to trace out a single familiar constellation. The moon remained warped, like a toddler has beaten their fists into clay and someone had allowed it to be put on display. It was overwhelming and literally nothing else mattered.

( _The.._.)

Whenever he looked up, everything hurt and his shoulders would feel heavy. Atlas had pawned off his duties and Edward was struggling to keep the sky from drowning him in its unforgiving vastness. The guilt that roared up every time Al smiled or Winry’s head tilted in that melodic, curious way was powerful enough to make his breath catch in his throat, but he managed to fight through it.

There was a _pressure_ , something that followed them all in a wide radius that squeezed in a tight band around his lungs, crushing at his ribs and bruising his diaphragm. It was like sleep paralysis, with something kneeling on his chest—demons were chatty. Who knew?—but he was wide awake.

It was a hateable, cold experience, but he’s gotten pretty damn good at disassociating. Even now, as he quickly hoisted himself up onto the platform, safe from prying eyes, Edward felt numb and distant. He nodded and smiled easily and gave polite apologies to the people he wove between, loosing himself among the larger crowd like a drop in a waterfall. Eventually he wouldn’t be able to differentiate himself from the rest of them.

Would that be so bad?

Half of him whispered _yes_. The other half screamed _no_.

One was stronger than the other. 

_Staying_ was so fucking _hard_. 

“Pardon me,” He shouldered his way through the thicket of bodies and chattering civilians and drinking in the slight puff of steam from the train engine as it coughed out clouds.

Months later and he still wasn’t used to the breezy clean taste of the air, nor the fact that the weather wasn’t perpetually set to overcast and smog-soaked. He wanted to take a minute to himself and just breathe in deep lungfuls before he had to go face everyone again, but Edward had every intention to do as he had learned to: keep his head low so he wouldn’t lose it. Don’t do anything to draw attention and watch for the right signs. Read people's hands—that's where it all pooled. Anger, anxiety, shitty trigger discipline and fear all gathered around peoples knuckles when they got evicted from the eyes and face. Everyone here was going about their business, perfectly innocent and absolutely unarmed, but paranoia was quite the persistent little prick. It stuck to him like a bullet stuck to skin and created holes in what was supposed to be there. 

Edward shook himself and passed under the arching exit of the station, eyes low but roaming for his… allies. That was probably the best (and shortest) word. They couldn’t be friends after all. 

They didn’t know him. They knew his name and face but it stopped there and no, Edward didn’t really feel a need to let it go any farther than that. Distance was best.

He spotted them after a minute and managed to make Mustang almost jump out of his skin with the sudden reappearance. The older man subsequently positioned himself as far away from Edward as he could, eyes downcast, and the blond couldn’t find the energy to question the action. He was plenty used to being overlooked. What’s one more adult with a bucketload of apathy?

Havoc and Breda snickered into their hands like the loyal, bonafide professionals that they were. 

Ed shot him a very specific look. It was weird seeing his own face giving him the _what the hell, man_ glare that was usually reserved for those who had committed some mild offence. “A little warning next time.”

He waved. “Nah. Gotta keep you on your toes.”

* * *

Edward hung towards the back of the group, led by Mustang, who had kindly made the decision to avoid Edward like the plague. Which, yeah, ouch, but it was also a small kindness. It wasn’t all that fun to be constantly, consistently, horribly reminded of the likelihood of the Mustang that Edward had known and trust was dead. For years now, he wouldn’t be six feet under alongside Hawkeye and Armstrong and all the others who had been gunning to take down Bradley.

It was a world full of ghosts and walking corpses.

He should feel at home.

He didn’t.

To Edward’s surprise, Hawkeye was the person who stuck closer to him. While the others traded casual words and verbally dragged each other through muddy, insult-cobbled streets, she fell behind, walking only a step ahead, close enough that she could watch from her peripheral. He wondered if she was merely fulfilling her namesake and keeping him under surveillance. 

He watched the buildings they passed and the city revealed that it was in full, beautiful colour.

Even with the less than perfect weather, the skies overcast with the hangover of a thunderstorm, it was bright and lively. He counted the amount of kids he saw smiling.

A dusty looking shop filled to the brim with books and doused and the warmth of a hearth caught his eye as they walked. It proudly held an open all hours sign and was flooded in bright orange and the display windows were stacked with yellowing photographs, but his attention got pulled away before he could really understand _why_ the little store had grabbed him in the first place.

“So you never fully explained _why_ Central.” Ed called back to him. “You popped up on East City first, right?”

“Well yeah.”

“So why not start there? It makes more sense.”

Edward blinked, then collected himself. He was being watched, after all. “No, actually. I have a little bit of a hunch, not a very good one, but you all talked about that tunnel network under Central.”

Al nodded, glancing back. “Yeah, the ones connecting all the labs.”

“Dante had her whole underground city thing in roughly the same spot. Both were hotbeds for alchemic felonies.”

Mustang huffed. “So we came out here on a _hunch_?”

“ _We?”_ He repeated incredulously. _“_ You came here all on your own. Don’t put that shit on me. ‘Sides, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t have a solution. Consider me humouring you.”

Winry looked at her shoes. “You’d think you would care a little more. Or at least pretend to.”

He shrugged noncommittally. “I’ve made my peace with it. Not my fault no one listened. The most plausible way would be punching back through the gate—also not very likely, at least not without killing anyone, but like I keep saying: you’re all _really_ persistent.”

“There’s more to it though, isn’t there. Central wasn’t arbitrary.” Ed… well, he didn’t _ask_. He _stated_ it with an uptick on the last syllable so it was framed like a question, but different or not, their brains were wired the same. The other boy could probably smell the suspicions and theories as they rolled off. Edward gave a curt nod.

“Yeah. When I first got kicked from my Amestris, it was in Central in that city. Actually—“ He paused, brow furrowing and sprinting through some latitude-longitude math to put cartographers out of a job and Eratosthenes rolling in his dusty ass greek grave. “—almost the same spot. Roughly. Error margin of about a mile. The point is I’m not convinced that’s a coincidence and besides, those channels are like a backdoor to four military labs. If there’s nothing there, you’re free to pretend none of this happened.”

“Oh, we’re breaking some _laws.”_ Havoc was beaming, the latter half of the statement ignored. “I’m in.”

“Hell yeah.” There was Breda, the wicked force of nature that he was. 

Edward smiled thinly. It was gone in an instant because of the violent, drowning sensation that boiled up moments later.

It was bearable. If he told himself that enough it would eventually be true. Placebo effect or some screwy version of it. Edward smoothed out his expression from the grimace it had turned into. The spot where a rib was still in pieces seemed to squeeze and squirm.

“One question though: why haven’t they been filled up?”

Hawkeye lagged again, shoulder to shoulder with Edward. There was still a respectable enough distance between them, which was great because Edward discovered that the choked up feeling got worse the nearer he was to anyone that wasn’t a passerby or shining dandelion. “There’s a couple of reasons.” She started. “Sudden construction in places that hadn’t been close to the fight would raise some eyebrows.”

“The other reason?”

Her expression pinched. “We actually don’t know how entwined the tunnels are with the city’s infrastructure. If we started to fill them up and there was pockets of air, or shafts that attached to above ground…”

“It comes down, gotcha.” He said it casually, but understood that horror better than most. Certainly better than any of them.

Seeing a street be crumpled like a sheet of paper, buildings felled through sheer force—it was one thing to watch from afar, but something else entirely to be a stick figure caught up in the artist's rage. He brushed off the grave expression he wore before it became anything more than a blip and his gaze darted along the street.

It was bright and lively. There were people milling about peacefully, soaking up the chilly sunlight and stealing what warmth autumn had left to offer. It was a nice day to be outdoors, but there were about to take a trip into this world’s pseudo-catacomb. Minus the bones, plus a dash (generous fistful, really) of alchemic tomfoolery. 

It was easy to find where the tunnels dipped close to the surface. That is, _if_ you knew what to look for. Edward didn’t, and thus the first few threads of trust were doled out by his stingy, manic mind. He stepped back and let himself, for a brief moment, be impressed by Al.

His brother.

The younger boy slapped his palms together and pressed them into the ground. It opened up into a narrow maw, dark and ruthlessly sending shivers down Edward’s back. His mouth curled and, to his relief, he wasn’t the only one. Al shuddered inwardly and Mustang wore an impressively repressed grimace, but it was still clearly there. 

“Shit,” Edward breathed, “this place feels wrong.”

“Like it’s haunted or something.” Al hugged himself loosely.

Mustang scoffed. “Haunted… yeah, something like that.”

The rest seemed put off, but there was no outward discomfort. Ed was the strangest of them all because he didn’t budge one inch. He breathed in the cool, damp rush of air without so much as a wince and was the first to take a step forward, leading the way down the stairs. 

In mild horror, Edward side-eyed Mustang as he, too, clapped his grubby little spitfire-hands together and snapped, giving them a trail of light blazing across the ceiling. 

“If it’s any consolation, I haven’t gotten used to it either.” Ed whispered. 

It wasn’t any consolation, but the attempt at levity did help pry up a little bit of the weight on his chest.

The stairs went on for longer than he expected, burrowing deep into the earth and he could understand more and more why they’d be worried about filling them up—if any spare corridor, room, or niche in the wall happened to be sealed shut, bubbling a few hours worth of air underground… the unending strain of concrete or sand or whatever else they had in bulk to dump underground would cause fissures and splits through the bedrock eventually.

Even if, somehow, they didn’t—though that would surely be stringing out workers' lives on the daily which, just, _no_ —there really wasn’t any way to fully know if these channels interacted with the ventilation or sewer systems. It would take ages to puzzle out and potentially hundreds of homes would be uprooted, families thrown out while the government went oh so inconspicuously digging around in their backyards. No way they’d be able to play that off.

When they reached the bottom, Edward swayed on his feet because of an overpowering jolt of something terrible. It was strong enough that he paused and took in a clipped breath. 

Winry looked around in a mix of awe and bafflement, mirrored by Havoc. Breda was frowning at the floor like it had done something to offend him. “I know you told me about this and all, but it’s still just…” Winry stopped, looking for the right word. Mentally, Edward wished her luck because _like hell_ there was any way to correctly express whatever the hell the feeling digging into his stomach was. “Bizarre.”

Previous statement has been retracted. That sums it up pretty well. Leave it to Winry to mince exactly zero words. She threw out the verbal equivalent to a whole goddamn tomato.

“I don’t think it would be good to split into groups.” Mustang started. Had he been practicing this? It sure sounded like it. His words were tied off with the auditory version of a ribbon all actors had, fragile and sweeping because they’d done it in rehearsal a million times and twice that many in their heads. He had definitely practiced this.

Edward nearly busted out laughing because of the sheer ridiculousness of it, and the fact that the man probably had done it before now too. Hell, Edward’s version of Mustang might’ve done it and he never noticed because it takes two years of spying down on plays to pick up on it.

“Famous last words. When someone kicks you, don’t say you weren’t warned.” Ed said, a gleefully mocking glint in his eyes. In _Ed language_ , it was that _I’m going to make your life hell_ gleam, reserved for pretty much anyone who managed to piss him off. 

“Flattering.” Mustang crossed his arms, unimpressed and perhaps a little miffed at his monologue being interrupted—extrapolation on Edward’s part, but hey at least it was a distraction from the fact that breathing hurt. The older man continued. “But there’s no reason to risk getting lost.”

A little bit of bickering came of it, but the lot of them settled, finally agreeing to stick together, even if it was a little begrudging. Edward would mostly prefer to be alone right about now, with the way everything was cold and hot at once and chills were tearing through him every few minutes.

The dim lighting was doing him favours, though, making the shivers look like they could perhaps just be a trick of the light, and the slight limp he’d never fully shaken could plausibly be from the uneven ground. His left step was a little shorter than the right, clipped like he was a puppet on a string with bad measurements, the knee unable to let his leg swing forward how it should. It was only really notable if one knew what to look for.

Luckily, no one ever did.

Breaking off the limb at the ankle had made it… worse. Edward wouldn’t claim the decision had been born of anything other than panic. It was a desperate bid to get ahead that failed miserably, and whoop-de-fuckin’-doo, here he is. Surrounded by living, breathing monuments to everything he never got a chance at. A future that wouldn’t ever be in the cards for him.

Whatever.

Who cares.

Certainly not Edward.

He was used to this, after all.

They walked in an unordered cluster, with Edward once again hanging near the tail end and grating his teeth while his bones felt like they were being dragged down into the deepest ocean trenches, the weight of the water shoving the air from his lungs in sharp pushes; it felt like something with under his skin, wrapped in a tight band around his organs and squeezing, waiting for them to burst.

The feeling started off slow, manageable but a surefire way to spark up a migraine and some lasting aches.

It grew in tiny, incomprehensible fractions with each step he took. Edward try to busy himself with studying the walls, as though it was any more interesting than a pile of rubble or any less tragic than a burning building. It was bland and lifeless. The space was flooded with bright yellow and inky blacks, stretching in every which way ad infinitum and eventually folding in on itself with the whims of perspective and optical fuckery.

There were old, age-stained lights string along the walls, looking out of place in their industrialism. They functioned well enough, casting a light vibrating buzz through the hallways like a beehive straight to alchemy-induced hell. And here they all were, marching through it.

Oh well. It can’t be helped, he supposed.

Except that it could.

And none of them need to be here.

And none of them should be here.

And Edward should’ve taken his chance to give him the slip back when they first got to Central, their wrath and panic be damned. It was just safer that way for everyone and he wouldn’t have to be staring at the remaindered that this was all incorrect constantly.

He sighed under his breath and pushed the thoughts aside. They wouldn’t do him any good. 

_Run._

It murmured lightly into his ear. Edward fixed his gaze on the pinpoint where the tunnel dissolved into a black dot.

The underground version of a horizon was a steadying presence, even as he fell behind the rest and almost came to a full stop just to pull in a proper breath. He kept moving, wincing and grimacing.

Al cast a wary look to Edward, his arms hugging at his shoulder tightly and expression pressed into something dismayed. “You feel it too, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s how we know we’re going the right way.” Mustang huffed, battling back a tremor of his own. It was unnerving that the rest of them seemed to not have a clue what they were on about. Ed had a knowing look about him and, despite the fact that he was walking upright and taking in lungfuls that were breezy and absent, Edward guessed he knew what they were all on about.

The way he kept on throwing concerned looks back towards Al was proof enough, even if, to no one else, the expression registered as anything other than blank. It was in the hands. It always, always, always was in the hands.

Both of Ed’s hands—flesh hands, goddamn it was off-putting—were jammed into his pockets, restrained by the fabric and a thin, waning will to _not hover_. 

Ah, the curse of an older brother.

Edward kept his eyes low, watching his feet as they moved and only glancing up to make sure his vision was only dimming from head rush or some faulty lights. There was an occasional fork in the path and he let the others hash it out, preparing for the squirming, clenching feeling in his stomach to fold outwards. 

It wasn’t even that bad.

Hardly the worst thing he’d felt. Hell, it wasn’t even the worst thing he’d felt in the _last week_ —that honour went to his stupid, battered body’s insistence to heal backwards, entry wound first, and open up the bullet wound with a halo of wheat stalks around him and crowned by the willowy branches of a dying tree.

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep the slight wince from appearing beyond an occasional flutter across his features. Every now and again, questions popped up. Mostly from Breda and Havoc, who either couldn’t read the room to save their lives, or were trying to lessen the crippling silence. Havoc was about as delicate in conversation as a wooden club. He was a blunt instrument and he was damn good at it, steamrolling through social interactions like it was his job to break down walls and barriers.

“So how’d they even build these tunnels anyways?” Havoc asked, his gaze turned plainly over to the oldest of their alchemists.

Mustang was almost comically exasperated. “How the hell should I know?”

“You were down here for like a whole day.”

“That’s quite literally not true. It was a few hours at best.” The Colonel (Brigadier General but eh, fuck ‘em) protested.

Breda sent a sly look and offered up a challenge. They chuckled at the extended misfortune of their superior, gesturing wildly and going on about something rather outlandish. Ed pipped up with corrections or insults. Al did the same. Winry laughed and it filled the channels with a sense of fleeting brightness. Edward stayed out of it entirely and combed over the walls. The pressure tugged and squeezed, like a set of arms locking him in a death grip.

How pathetic it was that it was the first time he felt touch since Winry hugged him back in Resembool. Oh well. Take what you can get, keep your head down. Breathe and don’t look up.

 _Run_.

That's how the sentence was supposed to end. He beat the instinct over the head, hacking it down from where it stood as a hulking tower until it cried and wilted down to a shrub. It would grow back up to a looming tree—something about old habits dying hard.

He stayed about two paces behind the group and didn’t say a word. They all got caught up in the conversation, playfully jabbing at each other or shooting out teasing barbs. They seemed to forget that he was there and Edward was perfectly okay with that. It was best for everyone.

* * *

The pressure worsened to the point of Mustang—even with all his pride and stubbornness—asking to take a minute. Al’s face was sweat dampened despite the fact that it was cold. Edward could feel it all, but disassociation was a hell of a tool and he held the little fucker right in the palm of his hand. Some part of him registered the way his chest rattled and that his flesh hand looked like the veins were being squeezed dry, cold and bluish around his nails, but every time it got worse he would just take a swing with his coherency-sledgehammer and it would die down a bit.

The bullet wound was making itself known and his back felt feverish.

They only paused for about five minutes and Edward watched from afar as Al was, in the most charitable terms, doted on by Ed. That’s how it was supposed to be. 

No, he wasn’t bitter. Just… tired. He was tired.

( _The one..._ )

Hawkeye and Winry both shot Edward peculiar looks, but he brushed them off. They reluctantly left him alone.

The trek continued until the air seemed to change. “It’s just up ahead.” Al muttered.

The corridor was unsuspecting, entirely the same as all the others they’d been padding through. Even the opening Edward could see near the finishing point was insultingly innocuous but he could feel his chest constrict. The sound around him became a little bit muffled, buzzing about. He shook his head and followed.

They all filed into the cavernous space, tangled with what looked like metal veins and a mechanical heart, alongside a splurge of alchemized constructions, streaked with the distinct marks of a hasty transmutation. In the far side of the room he saw a set of canons that practically had his own name written all over them. 

All seven of them passed into the space without issue. The pressure shifted.

Instead of crushing inwards, it was light there was a wind wrenching him back. They were underground. The only thing there could plausibly be is a slight draft but a weight was leaning against him with each step.

Edward came to a slow stop. Something was trying to drag him away. It felt like he was moving against gravity. It clung to him and Edward found he couldn’t take another stride, even as he tried to shove his foot past a certain point, it refused to let him cross the threshold. The feeling of dirty old wrongness was washing over him and the air was thick like he was treading through tar. 

He couldn’t go any further. It wouldn't let him.


	2. Rayuela

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mentions of death. Disassociation.

Al turned to look at him. “Aren’t you coming in?”

“I don’t think I can.”

The younger boy’s brow creased, his mouth twisting up a little in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean—“ Edward held up his left hand. “—is this is as far as I can go.”

He reached forward as the others turned, curious and bewildered. Hie leaned as much of his weight forward onto his wrist and he was met with a lot of resistance. Edward winced at the feeling of something battling and pushing against him in a ghostly touch, but continued to reach.

A high pitched whine came from the air as Edward's fingertips started to burn.

His hand shook in such tiny, rapid movements Edward expected the atoms in his flesh to vibrate themselves apart. A low, quiet, impossibly deep rumble came about, humming up as though spoken by the earth itself. It grew louder, accented by the piercing cry. It was like there was a wall of concentrated air keep him out and it started to crackle. It wouldn’t let him cross the threshold.

Edward stepped back, arm dropping and flexing his fingers. “ _ Ow _ , yeah. Can’t get through.”

They all gathered, hovering near the entrance. Winry stepped through experimentally and then shrugged. “I don’t feel anything.”

Oh, hello lightbulb above his head! Good timing. 

Edward knelt, clapping his heads together and feeling that absolutely  _ brilliant _ ring of power that was so much more comforting than it had any right to be, then pressing a hand to the ground willing the limestone into iron.

He coaxed up a fleck of metal, leaving an indent the size of a thumbprint in the stone. The iron was no bigger than a coin.  Edward tossed it forward and  _ aha!  _ It came to a screeching halt at the line separating the tunnel from the cave, thrown back like a ricochet. It clattered to the ground and Edward smiled bitterly to himself.

_ Five points to the world-hopping Elric _ . 

The odds just kept on stacking against him. It had to be one to half a million by now. Oh well, it made a good excuse to be on his way.

“That’s it then.” He said. “It’s because of alchemy.”

Al’s face was shadowed over with contemplation. “That makes sense, actually.”

The younger strode forward, himself stepping over the line and back again. It was hardly noticeable, but the moment before his foot carried him back into the metal tube-laden room, his step slowed. It didn’t stop, but there was clearly some effort needed to break through, like there was an invisible, cloying membrane. It let Al cross through with a small jolt. Al stared down critically, the whirring in his mind almost audible.

“Remember how we couldn’t use alchemy down here? That Father could… turn it off?” His head tilted, inclined towards Ed, gaze critical and terrifyingly focused. 

Yeah, that’s his brother. No doubt about it. They both had a flare in their eyes and a wrinkle across their nose when they thought too hard. It had been years since Edward had seen it in anything that wasn’t a hazy, sombre memory.

_ Stop it. _

Ed perked up. “Yeah. Why? What’re you thinking?”

The younger boy fiddled with his collar mindlessly. “He tried to consume god and he used alchemy to do it.” He paused to look up, firmly meeting Edward’s eyes. It was a genuine struggle to not look away in those few seconds, instinct begging him to end the contact as soon as possible because  _ that’s not him that’s not your Al the eyes are wrong and— _

Thankfully Al didn’t pick up on his internal moment of panic. Practice can do wonders with that sort of thing and Edward was up to his ears in logged rehearsals. Al continued to let his intelligence and observations spew outwards. “I think having so much power in such a concentrated space might’ve turned this place into a repellant.”

Mustang frowned, crouched down and brought his palms together then pressed them to the ground. The hard layer of stone fizzled for a moment, sparks coughed up and writhing around like arthritis-ridden snakes. The ground twisted, a small, fist sized piece of rock struggling upwards before sloshing downwards and reclaiming its spot in the floor. The Colonel’s eyes narrowed as he stood, arms folding over his chest. “Not just a repellant—a dead zone. It’s literally trying to keep alchemy out.”

“But you and I are both still alchemists. We still have access to the gate. Why only him?”

Edward blinked owlishly at them, shrugging like there was nothing to puzzle out. “Easy: you’re both  _ just _ alchemists.”

The room froze a little. He had to mind each breath with the attention squared centered on him. The pressure hadn’t let up and half his body felt feverish while the other half was numb and chilled. They stared at him questioningly and Edward stared right back, conveniently missing all their gazes to study some unfixed point on the wall. Eye contact was… weird. 

“And you’re not?” Ed asked incredulously.

“ _ Well _ …” His voice thinned, lips pressed into a line. How, oh  _ how _ should he put this lightly? Perhaps with the grace of a steamroller? Yes, that sounded about right. “Okay so, you’re all  _ supposed _ to be here. This is your world and whatnot.”

Ed nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“I’m  _ not _ supposed to be here. The only reason I am is because of some screwy combination of alchemy and the gate. If your both are, say,  _ half _ alchemy because you did a crime and went through—“

“—actually I didn’t—“ Mustang cut in. Edward talked over him.

“—then what would that mean for me? I’ve done it more times than I remember. Like… I don’t know, six or something.”

Al hummed. “Guess that explains why it’s not as bad for me or the Colonel.”

“Are any of you ever going to use the right rank?”

“No.” It was said almost in perfect unison between the three. Somewhere in the room, Havoc barked out a laugh and hissed something about a genetic silver tongue which Edward decided to take as a compliment. 

“Anyways,” He continued, much to the chagrin of Mustang with indignation splattered over his face. Hah. Serves him right for... existing? Yeah, good enough. “I’d be a hell of a lot more, you know, undiluted then you two.”

“And it’s got nothing on me since I can’t even use alchemy anymore.” Ed agreed.

“Exactly. Bottom line is the dead zone is gonna keep me out.”

Mustang recovered from the bruises to his pride with remarkable speed. Perhaps he was already used to this from the brothers he’d known for years now. Pity. Edward could fix that though— _ no _ . 

_ No, no, no. _ That’s not  _ him _ . You don’t  _ know him _ . 

“We could try to pull you across?” Winry pipped up from behind.

He shook his head before the sentence finished leaving her mouth. “I’m already down two limbs, so, uh,  _ no _ .”

They stood in silence, each respective member of their ragtag team racketing their brains for some kind of solution, dangerous and slightly less dangerous alike. Mustang was knee deep in his own thoughts, hand to his chin and muttering under his breath as Havoc and Hawkeye both milled about, kicking at the ground like the dust would stir up some ideas. 

Winry found an upturned slab of stone and sat down, head cradled atop her laced fingers. The Elric’s paced back and forth relentlessly. Edward watched, keeping his body still, his breath steady, and his posture stiff. His back kindly asked that he hunch down to take some of the weight off his still pressure-sealed ribcage.

He could always just…  _ run _ .

Throw up a quick wall and ditch them so he wouldn’t feel so crippled by the memories their faces brought. What a thought. 

But no. He had already decided against that and he refused to give in to the temptation so soon. It was spite, yes, but at least it kept him going. It was an uphill battle—up  _ mountain _ , more succinctly, but dammit he leaned how to climb.

Al broke the silence. “I’ve got an idea.”

Seven heads shot up.  The youngest Elric grabbed his brother by the wrist, plucking him right out of his train of thought and yanked him towards the entrance. Edward gave Al a perplexed look, eyebrows raised.

Al dragged his brother the rest of the way across the barrier and stood back. “Okay, so the theory is that this place is rejecting alchemy, right?”

The two nodded. Edward cast a sidelong glance to Ed, who shrugged. Very helpful. Very informative. If there weren't roughly three, four, five…  _ too many _ eyes on him, Edward would have pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Also to stave off the headache that was worming around behind his eyes and gnawing at his temples.

“So if you’re all alchemy—“ He pointed to Edward. With his hand. With his flesh and blood hand. For fucks sake. “—and Brother—“ 

_ Ow. Ow. Ow _ . 

“—has no alchemy, you might cancel each other out.”

Edward reeled for a brief moment before collecting himself enough to respond. “Well sure, but thats operating on a math-level. Unless we can physically be added together, I don’t know if anything will change.” 

“Well maybe it doesn’t need to be physical.” Al said. “Just… just try stepping through at the same time. Either the energy thats acting like a repellant will dissipate or you’ll stay blocked out. It can’t hurt to try.”

Perhaps he should inform them that yes, it likely would hurt to try. His stomach was doing gymnastics and his chest was tight like he was being dragged through a deep sea trench. Edward wouldn't be surprised if he found himself to be bleeding right about now.

He exchanged a look with Ed, who was grinning and determined. Edward felt frustration clawing at the back of his neck but relented. “Alright. If I explode it’s on you two.”

Ed counted down from three. They raised their left foot in unison and stepped forward. The air crackled and murmured, but it was too late to heed its warning. 

There was only a split second of resistant and then—

For a moment, Edward saw white. Pure, expansive white. And in that moment, there was a voice. It was barely there, like the sound of ones own name being called through a crowd that might’ve just been a trick of harmonic waves blending together. “ _Wrong way._ ”

—release.

He landed on the other side, unexploded and everything was way lighter.

Edward felt his chest expand so quickly he thought his ribs might break. By some miracle, they didn’t, but something clenched and then  _ popped _ in his ear. Suddenly there was a warm, sticky flow of something running down his neck. His left side started to ring and the world was lopsided, tilted by vertigo in a split second, sound muted and papery. He brought up a hand to touch the oily liquid. His fingers came back red. “Oh— _ seriously? _ ” He hissed, exasperated.

Edward snapped two fingers together, held beside his head. He could clearly hear it on one side but the other? No dice. Wonderful.

Ed’s face became alarmed in a split second. “Woah, hey, are you—“

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“You’re  _ bleeding _ .”

“Only a little though.”

“The  _ fuck _ , man.”

Well  _ that _ got everyone’s attention quick enough. He frowned and silently marked up his own literal, actual flesh and blood as a backstabber. They started all at once with questions and before the first words were out it was already too loud.

He glared at them all and calmly wiped away the little flow of blood with the back of his sleeve. It was watery and light, draining from his ear with a thin gurgle that only he would be able to hear. Or feel, more accurately. There was a little bubble pressing outwards, like it had been filled with oil. 

There was a streak from his nose too. Brilliant. His sleeve was stained with that too. 

Winry and Al both looked seconds away from getting fussy and Edward was really not in the mood to be within ten feet of any of them if he could help it. “Busted eardrum. It gets a bit finicky with high pressure.”

“You’ve got a nosebleed too, kid.”

“Dry air.” Edward spat.

No one seemed convinced.

“What?” He demanded.

Mustang raised an eyebrow. “You can’t really blame us if we don’t believe you.”

This was the first time in days Mustang had said more than a half sentence to him.

Huh.

“I absolutely do blame you, actually.” It was just  _ barely _ not a sneer.

“Stubborn brat.”

“Egotistical jackass.”

_ Stop it. That’s not right. Stop it. _

Edward’s mouth snapped shut before the bullheaded exchange could move any closer to familiarity. He bit his tongue and averted his eyes. “It heals on its own, swear on my grave.”

Hah. Which one? There were at least two, unmarked or otherwise. Did he have a grave back in his Amestris? God, that was a morbid thought. Maybe he’d get a spot next to his mother and an empty box full of belongings or photos. Hopefully whatever headstone he’d had carelessly dumped atop his body back in Sweden wasn’t blighted with his own name. 

No one knew who he was there. It was easier that way.

Edward  _ slipped _ .

A funeral. Did he ever get one? Did anyone even show up? He couldn’t think of many who would care. That wasn’t even cynicism or loneliness talking—its head was still bowed in the back of his mind—it was just true. He knew a clerk at the bank and that was about it. It was actually a little funny. A funeral for a ghost.

He’d already been dead. Walking through a hazy dream, just like he was doing now. A ghost. A walking corpse with a name and a chain around his feet, weighing him down. 

A ghost. 

That’s all there had been in the first place. What was there left to mourn? Who was even left to mourn for him? 

The stars.

The man in the moon.

_ Atlas _ .

( _...one thing… _ )

“We should look around.” A voice tore him from the daze. He’d been doing that a lot as of late. He’d been slipping into the past.

Yeah…  _ slipping _ . Edward blinked and it was all gone. There was no sky. He was underground, buried by ten stories worth of dirt and cityscape. His _allies_ stood before him.

_ Not friends. They’re not your friends. They’re his friends. _

He nodded mutely. Edward made a quick mental note to find some cotton to pack into his ear for the night so he didn’t accidentally ruin some innocent hotel’s pillowcases.

“Don’t kick stuff around too much.” Al called out. “I don’t think anyone was too concerned with stability when they were covering up this cavern.”

“Aye aye.” He muttered. 

Ed was the one who stuck closest to him, having mentioned offhandedly something about proximity and how the room itself seemed to reject alchemy. “Just to be safe.” He said with a shrug. The older boy—still cursed with exactly five feet and two inches of height, through some unfair coin toss or roulette wheel—looked mildly unimpressed and suspicious, but let it slide.

Edward was eight-two percent sure there was at like three ulterior motives but hey, who is he to talk? So long as he doesn’t start to pry or prod, Edward didn’t care enough to call Ed out on it. Thankfully the little trickle of pinkish blood that had been seeping from his ear slowed quickly and the sound was only a  _ little _ obscured. He’d been telling the truth this time.

A ruptured eardrum typically didn’t require much beyond being drained and kept clean. No swimming, no loud sounds, buy some earplugs. Amestris was landlocked and the loudest thing they had was some exceptionally malformed cars that wheezed and sputtered like a senior citizen on a treadmill. 

They didn’t have any planes to come screaming down. _ How quaint. _

He couldn’t help but feel a little bitter as Ed motioned for him to follow along deeper into the cave. “I know it’s here somewhere.” He said. “And it’s probably important.”

* * *

Edward blinked down at a small array. “ _ This _ is what he used?”

“Yeah.”

“For opening the gate?”

“Yeah.”

“The pseudo-stone, specifically?”

“Am I missing something? The answer is still yes.”

“It’s certainly not the one I saw. Or  _ used _ .”

The array was startlingly simplistic, chiseled into a little stone platform next to what looked like a garish throne. He’d seen a small chill rush over Ed and assumed there were some pretty unsettling memories attached to this place. They’d done one hell of a job hiding it up until now, but Edward wasn’t about to forget any of what they’d explained back in Resembool.

A homunculus named  _ Father _ (oh,  _ very _ subtle) and a god complex bigger than the entire country in a painfully literal sense. This lair had only been upheld because of all the anxieties surrounding what destroying it would do. Evil or not, traumatic or not, the cave had to stay for a while.

This was where _Father_ had turned himself into a god.

Where five stupid alchemists had been gathered up to kick open a door to drink up all the power the earth had to offer. Ed had seen his own brother die. 

And no, Edward couldn't imagine that. He didn't dare try.

Edward had given a subdued, sympathetic smile and trailed along to look at the circle.

Which was where his eyes were now fixed, jaw slack. Nothing lined up—from the angles of each line, the symbols stamped against the parameter to the sprawl of text that was scribbled out around it, babbling on about swallowing the sun or punching a hole through the sky. Edward’s own internal translation of the words were rough but it was some decidedly arrogant stuff. Like an ant proudly proclaiming it was the largest animal in the world as it rode on the back of an elephant kind of arrogant.

“I’m sorry, _ what?! _ ”

Edward winced at the shout, but didn’t chastise. It would’ve been a little on the nose to tell himself to quiet down, after all. “This is different. Like, I’ve never seen this circle before. Nothing even close to it.”

“Then how the hell were there stones back in your world?” Ed asked. 

“Grand Arcanum.” He leaned down, squinting quizzically at the array before sighing and making a grab for where he’d stashed his glasses. They were perfectly functional and didn’t hurt to wear, but he was able to feel the stares from everyone else whenever he’d slipped them on. Edward had opted for the most basic (cheap) set possible and it landed him in rounded copper wire frames the were actually pretty convenient for the kind of work he would do.

He’d gotten his fair share of playful teasing from a certain set of theatre buffs because apparently it was ironic how the colour seemed to match the rest of him, but Edward wasn’t really in the mood presently to get side-eyed.

_ Excuse him _ for reading by literal goddamn  _ candlelight _ for upwards of five years. His eyes were busted and he still needed to be able to  _ read _ , thanks.

He glared down through the lenses, their clarity revealing exactly nothing helpful aside from a few dulled lines of writing that was penned out along one side, faded by time and filled in by dust. He brushed a hand over the circle experimentally. Ed swatted his hand away from the transmutation circle like it was a reflex. Which, again, Edward didn’t really blame him for that. This whole place was surely wrought with pain and unwelcome thoughts.  _ Why _ they had all joined him on the escapade instead of leaving him at the entrance with a quick  _ good day, we’re off to be law abiding citizens _ , Edward didn’t know.

“Grand Arcanum?” Ed repeated, head tilted to the side and eyebrows lifted, looking lost. He supposed the arrays themselves had never really been brought up back when they’d first exchanged their encounters with the homunculus—and their leaders with inexplicable saviour complexes because, hey, even assholes need a goal—but this was still a bit of a shock.

He nodded. “Yeah, from Ishval.”

“Ishval?” Ed balked, slack jawed and staring. “Like,  _ Ishval _ Ishval?”

Edward hesitated, half fearing what the answer would be. “Is… is there more than one?” Apparently the other boy was too caught up in his own revelation to give a proper answer because instead of doing the very simple task of saying either  _ yes _ or  _ no _ , he blinked slowly. Something twisted in Edward’s side, like a bone being shoved out of alignment or an organ writhing.

Something felt off. 

Ed was still gapping. “As in  _ alchemy-is-blasphemous-I-will-cast-thee-unto-the-dunce-box _ Ishval?!”

“Again, is there more than one?”

“No, but they—they  _ really _ don’t like alchemy. Were their beliefs all different too or…?” Ed wore a desperately puzzled look. 

“It was the same, but they had a  _ history _ in alchemy. They didn’t ban it because of beliefs, they were the ones who  _ figured out _ how to make a philosopher's stone first.”

“I… I’m just gonna sit down for a second.”

And down he went, a soft thump following as he half-fell onto the base of the chair, head buried in his hands and mumbling, trying to rationalize the shift in perspectives.

Edward stepped back and felt awkwardly out of place for a moment.

And then he realized how stupid that was because that’s just  _ him _ . If nothing else, he could allow his own reflection to get a little closer than the rest; if nothing else, he could have a bridge for the gap he was digging. Edward peered down. “You good?”

“Well the world is falling apart, but yeah, I’m just  _ peachy _ .”

The twisting feeling wrenched to one side like an animal flailing to escape a trap, pulled taut and… and then suddenly it stilled. Edward breathed a soft sigh as it faded, his flesh hand mutely slipping under the creases of his jacket to prod as the knotted mess of scars at the bottom of his rib cadge. It didn’t feel overly inflamed, and there came no hot, sticky feeling of blood against his knuckles. It was probably fine.

Probably.

And if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. He could deal with on his own so long as his sanity stayed in tact and he didn’t start  _ slipping _ all over again.

Ed huffed out a dry, waning laugh. A bluesy harmonica player would’ve been jealous. “You sure know how to throw a curveball.” He said, hands dropping away from his face. He seemed mystified and exasperated at the same time. “You’re gonna have to show me this  _ Grand Arcanum _ thing at some point, yeah? Al’s gonna lose his shit.”

Edward nodded mutely and let the other teen have his crisis in peace. The silence got a little stifling, rife with a fresh sense of invasion, like this was something he shouldn’t touch or see. It was the epicentre of so much hurting and fear, after all, and there Edward went, dropping a piano on the poor guy, pitched to the tune of world-shattering epiphanies.

Change the subject. Dodge.

( _ Run _ .)

Edward glanced back at the raised slab of stone where the devil's work was housed so innocently. “Where’s this one from?” The alchemist gestured to the array. Ed collected himself, his arms swinging upwards for a moment before rushing down, using the momentum of the movement to propel himself upright and onto his feet. “Xerxes. It’s based off of a really old version, but simplified.”

Well now it was Edward’s turn to feel like he’d been hit on the nose with a bat. “First lead, I guess.”

They spent a while poking around, weaving between grand, melodramatic pillars and staring at the mess of coiled up pipes that crossed along the ceiling, curled over the floor and adhered to the big, self impressed chair.

They hardly spoke aside from the fruitless attempts at a lighter conversation that pattered out as soon as that wailing little voice shouted at him to  _ stop, stop it now.  _ He listened to it.

Edward watched in mild, impressed horror as Winry cracked the absolute hell out of her back, smiling to herself as she straightened up. He was a little surprised her vertebrae didn’t snap like a toothpick. “We just about ready to clock out?” She asked.

A chorus of  _ yes _ ,  _ yes _ , and  _ oh god finally _ were thrown back.

Mustang checked his watch and blanched. “Well shit.”

It was past nine. The streets would be dark. 

They took all of five seconds to agree that they’d find places to crash for the night and take a gander at more activities of questionable legality the next day. 

They counted their steps until they were a block from HQ and transmuted a stairway to the surface. Mustang and his team drifted one way as the trio of sun-touched teens turned down a wide street. A street that was miraculously adorned with alleyways.

Edward was a square step away from darting into the cover the cloak of shadows would provide, if for nothing else then to give his lungs a rest from all the heavy lifting they’d been doing, but, of course, Winry wielded stubbornness pridefully like a wrecking ball, her glare making him stop in his tracks.

“What?” He asked, not bothering to mask the agitation and exhaustion in his voice.

Winry scowled at him. “Going somewhere?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go find a bridge to hang out under.”

They blinked at him. Edward wondered if his voice was too dry or if they simply didn’t know he still had a sense of humour. “That was a joke.”

Ed offered to pay for his room when they stumbled up to a homey looking bed and breakfast type place. He waved it off and waited outside for about ten minutes after they went in. 

The moon peered down at him and the stars winked mockingly as though they knew exactly what their existence had stolen from him. 

( _...one thing..._ ) 

Edward sighed and put on his very best, perfectly tailored look of ease and strode inside. 

* * *

Riza watched the Colonel all but collapse into a chair with all the grace of a dying cow. She sighed. “You’re awfully dramatic today.”

“Well forgive me. I’m still getting used to all this.”

From behind her, Riza heard Breda clicking the lock shut, running his hand along the frame in search of any out of place bumps or ridges while Havoc pressed a finger against every mirror in the room. Paranoia was a contagious thing.

Besides that, it’s better safe than sorry. The hotel room was unassuming and bland, all the way down to the painfully characterless drapes and lemon polish swept side table. Havoc and Breda each gave her an affirmative nod that there was nothing out of the ordinary and she turned her glare back onto Mustang. “You spent the whole time avoiding him.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.” Breda chirped.

“Sorry, gotta agree with the Lieutenant on this one.” Havoc most certainly wasn’t sorry. He didn’t even try to seem apologetic, his expression covered head to toe in mirth, chewing away on his cigarette to keep from scowling.

Mustang didn’t glare back—he knew they’d eviscerate his pride and person if he even dared to try—but his hands laced together, contemplative and a little dazed. “Can you cut me a little slack here?”

“ _ No _ ,” She replied smoothly, her voice biting and more than a little cold. “I most definitely  _ can’t _ .”

“ _ Lieutenant _ .” He said sharply in a clear warning to drop it.

“ _ General _ .” Riza shot back, twice as filed down and with double the velocity. She watched it strike him between the eyes and he winced inwardly. 

Riza had a mighty bone to pick with the man. He’d plainly dropped said bone in front of her a week ago when he’d started keeping his back firmly turned to exactly  _ one _ person. She swore that she’d pull an explanation out of him with pliers, if it came to that.

Mustang dragged his head out of his head and righted his spine from where he’d bent it in the middle like an old man waiting for the arthritis to set in. The slight exhaustion and uncertainty on his face shifted, melting away into something more authoritative—more familiar. Riza leaned her weight against the foot of one bed, the metal frame humming lightly at the pressure. “Plan?”

“Falman said we’ve got about two weeks. I say that we ditch the uniforms for the time being and keep a low profile.”

“Will two weeks be enough?”

His gaze flickered downward. “No, probably not.”

Breda shifted his weight. “Especially not with the extra hand’s on deck around here. You all noticed that too, right?”

“There were a few dozen officers at the station.” Riza agreed. 

“Not just that: I saw groups of them stalking around Dawson’s bridge where commercial transport comes through. They were checking everyone. It’s weird.”

“New protocol?” Mustang lifted his head. 

“Dunno. Just kind of… strange“

“Hold on, back up.” Havoc interrupted as he sat himself down on a rickety folding chair, one foot hooked against the support bars between its legs so he could lean forward precariously. “Why would we need to keep all this a secret? Wouldn’t having military resources help? I mean, the kid’s basically trying to  _ break _ reality, right? If we fess up, we could drop the ruse and maybe actually get the right kind of help.”

Riza shook her head. “That’s too big of a risk. We don’t know how the higher ups will react. With the military's track record, they’d shoot first and ask questions never.”

“She’s right. It’s safe to keep things quiet.” Havoc stood against a wall, arms crossed and looking more contemplative than usual. “Besides that, I don’t think any of the kids would want the military involved.”

Breda barked out a laugh. “Ed would scalp us.”

“Which one?”

“Both. At the same time.”

“The other one had a gun.” Havoc mused to himself. “Wonder if he’s any good with it.”

“They’d scalp us  _ then _ shoot us.” Breda amended.

“Yeah, probably. So what now?”

“We keep an eye on them.” Mustang replied. “There’s still some time before Eastern Command gets suspicious, so until then we keep a low profile.”

“Right.” They chorused.

Riza turned her gaze to her two peers, voice stern. “You two have firearms on you, correct?”

“Uh, yeah.” Havoc glanced to Breda for confirmation before looking back to the blonde woman. “Why do you ask?”

“Keep the safety on. Don’t wear a holster; c ivilians aren’t meant to be armed.”

And it was true. But she could see and she had seen  _ someone _ eyeing all of their belts, measuring the distance and seeming suspicious. Watching people’s hands wasn’t something that trusting people did. It wasn’t something that peaceful people did.

“It’ll draw attention.” Mustang said with a nod. “Keep them out of sight if you can help it.”

“Right.”

He looked at them expectantly for a moment. No one moved, heels dug into the floor stubbornly and offering up no kind expressions. Riza could feel the gentle, restless, quiet curiosity—perhaps it was accompanied by animosity—rolling off her peers. They had the same question as she did and it was starting to eat away at them.

Mustang was the only person besides Ed who had really spoken with Edward outside of their initial intel swap.

And since then, he hadn’t even acknowledged the boy beyond a slight glance and a deliberate cold shoulder. The only time he’d broken that was for a passing  _ insult _ . It rang between them silently without rest:  _ why? _

“You’re dismissed.” He told them.

The three saluted and begrudgingly filed out. Riza paused at the door for a long moment and a miniature war broke out in his mind, debating and wrestling with whether or not she should stay; whether or not it was worth confronting him; whether or not it was any of her business. It wasn't and she knew that, but anger swayed her.

Riza let the door fall shut. “Why’ve you been  _ doing that? _ ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do.”

“I don’t.”

Riza turned on her heel slowly, doing everything she could to keep her expression neutral. “Why bother with any of this if you’re just going to act like a  _ child? _ ”

He stayed silent, refusing to meet her eyes. Instead he gazed downward, studying his hands, tracing and retracing whatever scars and calluses that may lay there. He straightened, only by an inch, his eyes still downcast in some mix of shame and hesitance—he was stalling, unwilling to rise to her challenge.

When his voice finally broke the tension—dense and daunting like a wall of brick and mortar—it was in a cautious, low admission. “I know you’ve seen it too.”

And she knew exactly when he meant. The constant watch Edward had on their hands and the occasionally baseless flinch. How could she not see it?

“Of  _ course _ I have.” Riza replied sharply. “Which is why I’m asking you  _ now _ why you were convincing him to stay in the first place.”  Mustang raised his head, looking determined. In an odd, fleeting sort of way. Her eyes narrowed. “If you don’t think it’s possible and don’t want to be near him, then why have you been so adamant? It’s clear that Edward barely wants to be doing this, and would rather all of us leave him be. So  _ why? _ ”

Mustang grimaced under her glare.

He looked back and sighed. “It’s like a mirror but there’s still a  _ spark _ . I’m  _ adamant _ because there’s nothing else I can do.”

She felt taken aback, thrown for several loops. Knocked a little off balance that his reason was so inconsequential. Why wouldn’t it be, though? That’s what tended to matter the most: the tiny and the unperceivable. “So nothing went wrong, then? Last week?” She asked.

He shook his head. “No. Nothing. He actually seemed surprised that I thought he’d still be mad.”

“I… I don’t understand. If nothing happened, then why have you—“

“I’m trying not to overstep. I crossed a line last time and I’d rather not make that mistake again.”

“He’s still a  _ person _ .” Riza hissed. It sounded too harsh and too pleading at the same time, angry even to her own ears. Anger that wasn’t just directed at Mustang, but at all of this. He was just the current epicentre.

“I know that.”

“Then start acting like it.” She snapped. “You don’t have to be cruel like you are now.”

“That’s hardly fair.”

“This isn’t fair to Edward either.” It was so humiliatingly,  _ comically _ far from being fair that to say it aloud felt stupid. Stating the obvious when to was already being pushed down everyone's throat. Of course its not fair. The kid was only nineteen and here he was, starting from scratch for a second time with enough baggage to cripple anyone for life but still he managed to stumble onwards. “He’s alone. The  _ least _ all of us can do is be decent to him.”

“I… okay. You’re right.”

“I know.”

* * *

Edward was—

—sneaking out.

Or, at least it felt like he was. Insomnia was kicking his ass into the next technological revolution and the inn’s paper thin walls did exactly nothing to combat the persistent flinches that kept him from dozing beyond a long blink.

So he was sneaking out.

Sort of.

It wasn’t as though there were any parents waiting to catch him in the act—hell, there never _had_ been any in the first place, unless the definition was being stretched to the point of military members or housewives—but the slight thrill of lightly padding through the halls and silently nodding to the poor sod stuck behind the receptionist desk until the sun reared its head made it feel like he was. He, almost childishly, walked on his toes until he reached the freedom of the street.

Ed and Al were somewhere down the corridor to the left, Winry slotted off to her own private little heaven of steal-able soaps and starched towels on the right.

The sky spat down rivets of light. He looked up to glare at it as he walked, a good distraction from the stray set of MPs that strode aimlessly. He walked like he had nothing to hide and they didn’t pay him any mind. Edward’s gaze stayed locked on the sky. It matched his malice with the force of the moon's gravitational pull and the heat of all the stars that hadn’t folded in on themselves yet, however many millions of miles away they were.

Edward would like to be able to say that he simply wanted to clear his head a little. Perhaps it was plausible that he’d gone into the outdoors to inhale some tobacco, taking after Havoc and his lung-fossilizing habits. 

_ Hah _ . Edward had, surprisingly, tried it once on a dare and  _ unsurprisingly _ almost immediately marched into the nearest washroom and tried to rinse the taste out. It felt like shredded grass and death cup mushrooms, so he swore off giving in to dares.

His steps skimmed along the still city, accented with the mumblings of eternally lit-up pubs, music spilling out of the odd window, sprawled from a phonograph and skipping over the parts where the record must be worn out. He tuned in to the sounds of the night and breathed, turning down a wide road decorated with more lights and dotted with  _ come in, we’re open _ signs glowing through the light traffic. 

He kept on walking.

( _ Run _ .)

Edward wished it was for some decent reason like an old habit, a need to get out of the closed space, or maybe even just some nagging need to see Central again in all of it’s bloodstained glory. 

Nope.

It was none of that. The real reason was a touch embarrassing. 

Simply put, Edward was still thinking about that damn book store. Its sign announced itself as a twenty-four hour business so… here he was.

At twelve thirty, darkness thrown over the world in a quilt. All because he wanted to check out some ancient looking novels. Something about it felt nostalgic and kind in a way he hadn’t felt in months.

Edward should shamelessly grab on to any semblance of solace he could find in this dream within a dream (within a nightmare), whether it be juvenile or not.

He didn’t remember exactly where the place had been located, but had a vague mental map pointing out landmarks and whatnot like a broken compass spinning drunkenly. He followed intuition because the worst thing that would happen is he couldn’t find it and would trudge back to the inn with a hint of disappointment. 

Past experience warned him that it could end up far, far worse. Last time he was out past the time he should’ve been made him an unwilling witness to casual execution. 

He shook himself and pushed the memories as far down as they would go, crammed into a tiny bottle with a screw top lid and maybe a padlock for good measure. They burst out eventually, glass and shrapnel in spades, but for now he just wanted some peace.

Edward ran his hand along the brickwork as it turned into an iron fence, lacing a pretty looking estate. Two people danced by the light of a lamp, their silhouettes in the window and it made his heart tighten in his chest.

Edward just smiled to himself and put one foot in front of the other like he always did. Always on the move. Always… running.

A honey-glow caught his eye after another block or two and nostalgia swelled up. It was warm and tinted grey. A little less saturated, but still bright. Inside was just as sun-drenched, somehow importing the rays directly from the source and scattering them about the store.

A middle aged man was perched behind a desk, thumbing through a novella. He looked up at Edward and his face softened curiously. 

“What can I do for you?”

Twenty minutes later he left, the bells strung to the doorframe singing at his departure and a small bundle in his hands. It was ridiculous.

Top to bottom, it was ridiculous. Edward knew that there was no reason to have gotten it in the first place, but they had a proud sign proclaiming that they didn’t accept returns.

Oh no… how tragic. Well, he’ll just have to keep this accidental purchase, then.

It wasn’t even a proper book that he’d gotten. It wasn’t some kind of anthology or novel, not essays packed into a leather journal. 

It was a play.

He didn’t even  _ like _ plays. The melodrama annoyed him, the high octane emotionality made his eyes roll all on their own, and the operatic ones that blew through the theatre were fond of having gossamer thin plots he could tear with one hand. For a time he hated them like a soloist hated recitative.

But... the songs were still lovingly sung. The actors belted their lines like their hearts were in their mouths. The dances all had been stamped to his brain like a brand, choreography memorized through the sheer volume of times he’d sat through them. The pianist was young and passionate, nine yards full of empty seats. He didn’t even like plays, but it sat comfortably in his hands and it looked familiar enough to lift the weight off his chest.

Edward took his time finding his way back, milling in a simple, unmotivated type of way. He nodded politely to a woman in a slip, a loose coat that was twice the width of her shoulders, arranged like some haphazardly sewn curtains with her head out her window, propped up three stories above and puffing away on a stick. She glanced down with a smile and offered him a hit.

Edward declined with a dismissive wave and she snickered lightly into the crook of her arm. He wandered in and out of populated areas, dipping between the lively scene of restaurants and liquor stores to the quiet spots with an oddly high population of balcony gardens. Residential areas always did tend to be more scheduled in their noise making practices. There were children, after all. 

Edward didn’t dare march himself near Central Command—he planned to steer clear of it even if that meant swerving into oncoming traffic—but he did find himself accidentally swinging past a station stamped with the military police insignia.

The insides were lit up, glass untinted with people rushing around. In pairs, they seemed to be getting instructions.

He eventually rediscovered the fine art of basic city navigation and showed up at the inn door, his breath fogging in the chilled air and face surely a bit flushed. He padded inside, cargo tucked under his arm carefully because suddenly it was the most precious fucking thing in the world and it was just paper and glue. 

The clerk acknowledged him with a slow blink and Edward took that as his cue to not bother with any pleasantries, instead striding to him room through the twisted hallways.

Had these been designed after tree roots or something? A poor drunk architect had probably mathematized the hell out of this place and slapped it on a city planners desk before the hangover wore off. 

Or maybe it was just really old.

Edward was so close to slipping back into his room. He was so close it was insulting.

Hand on the doorknob, key in hand. He was so damn close but—

“Hey,”

And his soul proceeded to fully leave his body. “ _ Fuck _ —“

For a split second Edward was just  _ enormously _ exasperated.

_ Seriously _ ?  _ Again?! _ Is there a quota someone needs to fill or something? Was there a set number of times his spirit needed to evaporate and his corporal form left a startled husk? Management, please. This is ridiculous.

It returned in time for him to jump hard enough that he actually might’ve pulled a muscle and there stood the three golden haired cracked eggs, stubborn and wonderful in the most inconvenient of ways. He silently cursed the little mumbling part of his mind insisting that  _ he kind of missed this. _

Absolutely not.

(A little.)

_ No, no, no. Stop it. That’s not— _

“Thanks for the stroke, I really needed that.” He cut off his own train of thought and they didn’t even have the grace to look a little sheepish.

Edward wondered how he hadn’t felt anything before. Physically, that is. It came rushing over him all at once in a wave of nausea and lightheadedness. Luckily his hand was still braced against the door, so the sway wasn’t noticeable.

They were all watching him curiously. “Did you, uh…” Al started, “Go somewhere?”

“Better question, why are you all hanging around in the halls? Specifically outside my door?”

“ _ Your door _ was open. We kinda assumed you took off.”

_ How _ . 

How had this gone so wrong so fast. He was a microsecond away from making a clean escape and they show up out of nowhere like a bunch of garden gnomes—

Edward breathed a sigh of  _ something _ , the jury is still out, and levelled a critical look at all three of them. “Your faith in me is astonishing.”

Winry crossed her arms stubbornly, a mess of bedhead so fantastic Edward had no other choice then to believe she had been knee deep in a dream when the brothers had come to yank her out of the bliss. “It’s not our fault you disappear so much.”

“Not my fault you’re all paranoid.” He replied, silently pushing open his door, paperback treasure still half hidden under his arm. 

He didn’t close the door, but he nudged it as he passed by, letting the crack fall into a sliver. 

The message was pretty clear. It was his way of asking them in the kindest of terms to  _ please for the love of whatever deity was available to kick in the shins _ ,  _ leave _ .

He’d finally stopped. Couldn’t he at least get some rest?

Ed and Al took the cue, turning away like nothing had happened and disappearing behind their own number-stamped door.

Edward glanced over his shoulder.

Winry still stood there, eyes downcast and shifting her weight from foot to foot. She worried at her lip and hugged her shoulders despite the layers of sweaters she’d bundled herself up in like a caterpillar swathed in its own silk.

Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t slept in a while. Maybe he was still riding the little wave of warmth he’d gotten from pilfering a script, complete with all the goofy little stage directions. Maybe he just missed Winry.

Whatever it was, it was strong, tugging at him, making his heart twist up and squeeze itself dry of whatever nasty concoction of blood and stubborn willpower it insisted on pumping.

He did miss her.

A lot.

“You wanna come in?”

Even now he could still read her. Her hands moved a little differently, more nimble and less mechanical, but the twitch that ran between her index finger and thumb was still present. It was something Edward figured most people wouldn’t notice, but he’d spent three years painstakingly trying to remember, catalogue, and brand every single memory and detail about his friends from home. He could write a book on it at this point.

Winry was doing it now with her eyes wide, blinking at him after he’d let the door swing open. The arc it swept in was pathetically understated. 

It felt like something a bit grander might be in order. Here he was, olive branch in hand and his heart skewered by the bark, and it was some ungodly hour in the morning, cradled by a cheap hotel. Winry looked like if surprise had rabies and bit her on the heel. “Pardon?”

Edward side-stepped with a light gesture. “I won’t be offended if you don’t—“

“No.” She cut him off. “I mean,  _ yes _ . Thanks.”

It was a sickening mix of alien and familiar as she strode inside. She had been expecting to fight her way in, he realized. Maybe not physically, but she had a brilliantly graceless way of throwing words.  Edward was too damn inundated with survival and agreeability to have gotten into any kind of argument about it and besides that he shouldn’t have.

Because it’s not his place. This isn’t his place. 

Winry padded over to one of the weathered wooden chairs, eyeing the space curiously as though it was some art adorned gallery. 

“So you wanted to ask something?” Edward sank into his own chair, somehow managing to fold his legs without tipping over. 

She frowned. “I never said that.”  He raised an eyebrow at her. Winry sighed. “That easy, huh?”

“Like reading a book.” He confirmed.

“Yeah.” She leaned back, arms crossing over her chest. “Ed and Al always say that too. And Granny. And Lieutenant Hawkeye…” She trailed off.

“So…? What’s bugging you?”

“I was just wondering why you took off.”

Edward gave her a quizzical look. One hand drifted to mindlessly tug at the loose, uneven strand of his hair. The feeling of the newly cut pieces was forever odd, yet he couldn’t get rid of the habit. “Pretty sure I answered that already.”

“I mean in Resembool.”

He stilled, eyes dropping the floor. Winry’s hand fidgeted and twirled amongst itself, moving like the needle of an embroiderer through fabric. The only image it created was anxiety. Edward gave a bitter, humourless smile. “You’re not making this easy, you know.” It fell from his mouth like gun cotton—soft and gentle and explosive.

“You don’t have to answer.” She rushed to add. “I just worry a lot. More than I probably should and I know you’re still—“ Winry made an impossible gesture, both hands flourishing to his…  _ everything _ . “—trying to figure this out. I mean, we  _ all _ are. But it just scared me a bit.  _ You _ did.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Edward offered. It was impossible to navigate this. Where was his lighthouse? It should be here because this feels like a thrashing storm and soon enough he’d drown.  In discomfort and guilt and whatever else decided to crop up at the back of his mind like a dandelion through the cracks of a sidewalk. 

(“Look how friendly.” The redhead beamed. “It doesn’t know it’s not supposed to be here.”)

“No, not like that.” Her tangled curtain of hair moved in a thin ripple as Winry shook her head. One hand gripped the cuff of her sleeve, eyes turned to the side and searching for something to lock on to that wasn’t him.

It wasn’t easy, he was willing to wager: seeing a friend’s corpse.

And this one was walking, no less. Walking and talking like it ought to be alive still. Edward knew that no matter how glad he was that he was still breathing, heart still beating, and head still spinning, he shouldn’t be. 

He shouldn’t be talking to her like this at all. 

Winry hesitated before she spoke. “I know it’s not really my place to go digging into whatever was going on, but you seemed out of it for a good while and then just  _ left _ . Did… did I do something…?”

_ Shit _ .

“No, no, no. You didn’t— _ no _ .” He clumsily rushed to assure her and the words came tumbling out before he could remind himself that he should keep his mouth shut. “It wasn’t you I just wasn’t really… there. Mentally and physically cause the stupid bullet wound from before gets worse and opens sometimes and I’m not really sure why, but it might be healing in reverse because of the time differences between worlds—“

“Wait.” She cut him off. “The _what_ ?”

_ Goddammit. _

All that time learning how to dance around questions and lie through his teeth and for what? She had torn down every cinderblock in the walls he’d put up with a few words and dulled the razor wire like they were cornsilk. He should stop talking.

Ask her to leave.

_ Run. _

Too late to go back tracking now. His mouth pressed into a line. “Yeah… remember back when I kinda collapsed and whatnot?”

Her face fell flat for a single, unimpressed second. “Yes, I do recall that.”

He winced at the accusatory tone. And then winced again internally because  _ god _ it’s  _ Winry _ and this was so easy and so hard at the same time. The responses were jumping out like metal shells from the belly of a plane, all to eager and loud, but leaving rubble in their wake. 

Edward spoke without thinking, the reigns on his own mind loosening by a fraction. “It’s still… causing problems.”

“Oh.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, chin cupped in on hand, looking at the floor with a pensive expression. “That’s not good. How long?”

Oh.

And here he was, expecting to be told it was all in his head like usual; that he was a little crazy and needed to sleep better.

Her eyes turned up to meet his and Edward had to fight against the urge to look away. Looking people in the eye usually means trouble but it’s  _ Winry _ . The blue of her eyes was off only by a millimetre in the colour spectrum, hair duller and hands quicker.

It’s not her.  _ It is. _

It’s not.

He shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t his and he should really just stop all this before it felt too real.

Just run.

Edward sucked in a breath and tried to quiet the paranoid murmurings because he knew  _ damn well that none of this was righ _ t but Winry was as stubborn as they come and his cover was blown. “If I tell you, are you going to yell?”

She glanced around the room. “…No. It’s late, I wouldn’t want to get any noise complaints.”

“Glad to know that’s your reasoning.”

“I’m just polite like that.” She shrugged with a stern, challenging smile, the edge of concern gone away like it had never even been there. Ever teasing, never slow. “Well?”

Edward hesitated. The room wasn’t small. He was close to the door. Nothing was wrong. He didn’t need to run. He’s okay.  _ This is wrong _ . Edward had to manually uncurl his hands from where they’d balled into fists, relaxing his shoulders along with a defeated exhale. “Since I got here, I guess.” He said noncommittally.

Winry pushed back her hair with an exasperated, maybe even  _ annoyed _ huff. “For gods sake. Really? And you didn’t say anything?”

He smiled—it was a pitiful, sad thing—with a bit of asperity leaking into the expression. He couldn’t help it. “I didn’t exactly have anyone to say it to.”

She shook her head, voice incredulous. “A  _ doctor _ , maybe?”

Edward damn near snorted. “Yeah, no. I wouldn’t want to have to explain all of this.” He gestured to himself. Winry rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure they would’ve put me in an asylum.”

“I—“ She stopped, face shifting, hands freezing in place. “—okay, that’s fair actually.” She sank back, fingers twisting at the ends of her hair, folding it and twirling it. Maybe she’d developed some kind of tic over the years; needing to keep one's hands busy was pretty easy to come by. Edward was no exception. He used to carry around screws and washers to keep himself from going crazy on trains.

The exasperated and light, if a little awkward air faded. Winry looked… upset.

Edward shifted his gaze the moment he saw it start. The plaster on the walls was a little cracked in some places, he noted. He could fix it sometime, perhaps. He had alchemy again, so it wouldn’t be very hard. Just a quick clap and then he’d be on his way. He had alchemy again and he forgot that most of the time.

“I could check.” She said.

Edward kept his eyes averted, but he tensed involuntarily. His heart took a running jump into his ribs, battering against his sternum. He could feel the reverberation all the way down his arm into his fingertips. The room was getting smaller and the door was getting farther. 

Edward forced himself to stay where he was. Winry’s voice came again, cautious and quiet.

“I know a good amount about medical practices. Been scrubbing in on automail surgeries for years now.” She paused. Edward’s jaw locked so tightly shut he worried a tooth would crack under the crushing pressure of his own anxiety. His side and back started to ache, the scar tissue pounding and pulling like it has started to shrink, collapsing in on itself. Almost like a star becoming a black hole. The spot where a rib was still malformed, wrenched out of place by the flight of a bullet began spasming.

Edward quietly bit his tongue and kept his eyes low. How mean spirited the world was to make this so normal for him? Pain was a prerequisite to breathing. Maybe this was what happened when the dead kept walking. They  _ hurt _ .

It was exhausting.

“I won’t say anything to anyone about it if you don’t want me to, but it can’t hurt to look. If you’d rather not, I’d understand but…” Winry tried to catch his eye, so he closed them. “But if it’s _that_ _bad_ , then don’t you think you— _we_ —should be trying to figure it out…?”

The bone seemed to twist.

Edward let out a breath, but didn’t look up. She was probably frowning, eyes with a dull gleam of hope and face coloured in shades of worry. Edward could picture it well enough, despite the fact that he always turned away when she would wear that expression. “It’s a bit more complicated than just a normal injury.”

“Which is exactly why you should have it checked.” Winry replied.

“I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Because it sucks.” He told her mildly. “It  _ sucks _ and it’s unpleasant and I don’t want to put that on you.”

“I’m the one asking.”

“And I’m saying no.”

“Ed—“

His heart clenched. “I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but it’s fine.”

“It’s  _ not _ fine.” She practically spat. Edward looked up to find her stiff in her seat, both hands curled on her knees and her whole body drawn up into a bundle of anger and stubbornness. Her face was hard, strung with a streak of pure, untouchable frustration. “You know none of us are out to get you. You can talk to us. I  _ know _ you and I know that you’re uncomfortable with everyone and being distant and I know it has to be lonely because this isn’t your world.” The room continued to shrink. Edward’s pulse took off in a roar. It happened so fast he almost got vertigo. Winry wasn’t slowing down, though. When had she ever? “I won’t try to say I understand what that’s like. I don’t and I can’t, but we’re still your  _ friends _ .”

Something in his snapped. The bone, perhaps? The force of it ricocheted up his back, kicking across his spine like the edge of a blade. He grit his teeth and made sure to keep his tone level. “You’re not, actually.”

“I am. I’ve known you since we were both kids. Even if things are different I still know you.”

He started to  _ slip _ . “You don’t. I’m not  _ him _ .”

Winry faltered. “I know that, but—“

“ _ But _ that’s it. We met a week ago.” He said plainly. Disassociation and disconnection were a neat trick. It kept cool the fire in his head and the heat that clawed at all the scars—names, memories, regrets—he carried across his back and shoulder.  _ Atlas _ .

“That’s not fair.” Winry was nothing if not stubborn, looking up to him with determination. “We’ve known each other for years. And—and I’m still you friend so you can quit walking on eggshells.”

Arguing like they always had was easy, having to answer without blowing up was hard. Edward shook his head. “We’re not friends.”

Her face twisted, jaw twitching. He blinked, slowly and deliberately, trying not to have to see the look of hurt that cut across her features. It was better this way.

Because it was Winry and it wasn’t. 

Edward felt a little dizzy. The walls continued to constrict, tightening around him in a rather claustrophobic, suffocating way. Like a bunker or a basement. The belly of a ship, perhaps. That’s besides the point.

The door seemed too far away and Edward fought back the rushing urge to  _ move _ . Winry’s voice rose above the slight ring in his ears. “But—“

“You don’t know me.” He said firmly, but not unkind. He wasn’t trying to be cruel. It was just better this way for everyone and Winry should spend her time worrying about the living, not him. Besides all of that, it was a simple truth. She doesn’t know him and he doesn’t know her.

_ Run _ .

“Can I know you?” She asked softly. 

Edward breathed and listened to nothing but his heart as it thundered in a calming, chaotic lull. 

_ Beat. Beat. Beat. _

He inhaled. He was close to the door. Nothing was wrong but his mouth was dry and he suddenly was far more tired than he had been moments ago. This still wasn’t his. He shouldn’t have said a word.

Edward glanced up to her with a resigned, tight smile. “It’s late,”

Her lips parted, brows lifted in a slightly dread-tinged look. Like she was just realizing that she’d stepped into a minefield and the soil was level. “Wait, sorry I—“ She tried, rising from her seat, hands grasping at nothing but the hems of her endless sweaters.

Edward stood, the smile never wavering. He knew it wasn’t a very happy look, but it was all he had. “No, no it’s fine.” He told her gently and he meant it too. None of this was on her and Winry was altruism infected right down to her bones, soaked through her person in a viral way that couldn’t be staved off by any kind of logical medicine. He meant it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still a touch painful to hear the question come from her mouth. 

_ Can I know you? _

What he wouldn’t give to say yes and just collapse. But that’s not right and it’s not fair. Not to Winry, or Ed, or Al or himself. What he wouldn’t give—

( _ The one… _ )

“It’s okay, really. It’s just…” He gave her a lopsided shrug. His shoulders burned and felt taut. “ _ Late _ .”

Winry’s face melted with a sigh. “Right. Yeah, I should probably… head off.”

She looked confused but… not mad. Not hurt or frustrated, just confused. Edward wished he could let go of his own moral compass for just a moment—there was some magnetic force pulling it in a direction that certainly wasn’t north, anyways; it pointed straight down into the earth—and just… reach out. He didn't.

Edward just watched as she made her way to the door. He trailed, on hand quietly rested on the worn metal knob that squealed when turned counterclockwise but was dead silent on the reverse.

She paused just outside the door. “I didn’t want to argue.”

“You never do.” He replied lightly. Winry’s hand wound into a little section of hair, tugging at it and folding it across her knuckles, looking a little guilty. Edward caught her eye with a soft, laid back scoff. Deflecting worked wonders. “It happens. Don’t worry about it.”

“It doesn’t have to be me.” She said quietly. “Or any of us and... I just worry a lot.”

Edward waved it off like one might wave off a swarm of bees in the middle of an orchard. That is to say, with casual abandon. “There’s no need to worry. I’m not dying.” _He was._ “It won’t kill me.” _It might._

She turned and left with a terribly soft goodbye. Edward was able to lock the door this time.

He let out a breath, hand still on the flawed little doorknob, forehead coming to rest on the chipped and polished wood.

The pressure lifted from his chest. Maybe this was just a new form of phantom pain that he’d never gotten acquainted with before. Edward wondered if he could tell it to fuck off because its company was certainly not a fitting pair for Edward’s misery. 

He practically fell onto the hotel bed, the mattress springs un-rusted and sheet clean of dust. The seeder places he’d holed up in weren’t always this loved. Edward reached out blindly, his face buried in a pillow, feeling along the side table for his newest useless item to drag around like a ball and chain. This one was a bit pretty, though.

It was old and covered in a bright, starry design. Maybe that’s what made him gravitate towards it in the first place. 

Hah, gravitate. Like the moon to the earth, it pulled and pushed and then pulled harder. Edward pushed himself up on his elbows, sitting upright with his back against the wall, glasses clearing his vision of doubles. The cover was wordless and delicately covered in flourishes, but loud, graceless typewritten script sat on the first page.

_ The Clockwork Boy and the Crooked Sky. _

* * *

SCENE 1

EXT. FOREST — NIGHT

(The sound of a clock being wound up, then quiet ticking.)

(Dark blues and greens make up a forest, trees in the background.)

(Here and throughout, locations can be represented loosely with lighting changes or projection reels, as well as addition and subtraction of essential set pieces.)

BOY (O.S.): It’s fine. This is all fine.

(Enter the boy, stage left, young, dressed in worn out clothes. He has a slight limp and is carries a bag with him. The boy is nervous and looking around like he expects something to jump out or attack him.)

BOY: Yeah. Nothing creepy or scary around here. Only a little kid would get scared about something like this.

(The boy sticks a hand in his pocket and pulls out a watch. The ticking stops abruptly.)

BOY (to the watch): Why won’t you work right?

(Beat.)

BOY: Not talking, huh? You’re supposed to help me tell time and all you do is stay broken.

(He sighs and pockets the watch.)

(He passes by a cluster of trees that shudder once he passes. The boy pauses and looks at the trees. It stops moving.)

BOY (hesitantly): You’re just imagining things. Everything is fine. Ghosts aren’t real, so this place can’t be haunted. You’ve got one job! It’s easy! Keep going until you reach the broken bridge, then cross and go north. Simple. Broken bridge, cross, north.

(There is a rustling in some nearby bushes and the sounds of animals.)

BOY (quietly): I’m gonna die.

(His steps are slow and cautious. When he looks away, the trees shudder again and shuffle towards him. He hears it and spins around.)

BOY: Is someone there?

(The dark lighting lifts, brightening enough to see the trees more clearly. The boy creeps forward and stares at the one that had been shaking. The sound of wind whistling makes him spin away.)

BOY: Hello? Is… is anyone here?

TREE: Nope.

BOY: Ah! Who said that?

TREE: Not me.

(The boy turns back towards the tree and leans forward. His hand rises to touch the tree. A hand shoots out to stop him. The boy stumbles back.)

TREE: Don’t be rude.

BOY (hand on his chest): You scared me!

(A head pops out from behind the tree. Here and throughout, intimate object will be costumed to evoke the idea of what they are, not direct replicas. Pantomime and stylization required.)

TREE: Well, what’re you doing all alone?

BOY: I’m going home is what I’m doing!

TREE: It’s awfully late.

BOY: I’m in a hurry.

TREE: Why’s that?

(The tree shuffled forward, seeming to have little concept of personal space. The boy backs away a few steps.)

BOY: Because…

(The brighter lights dim again, a spotlight on the boy’s hands.)

BOY: I caught lighting in a bottle.

(The tree claps enthusiastically.)

TREE: Wow! Hey, come look at this!

(Two more trees emerge from the forest and come near the boy, staring at the light in his hands. They circle him.)

TREE 2: He caught lighting?

TREE 1: Sure did!

TREE 3: That’s not all he caught! Look here.

(Tree 3 points to the boy’s foot. The spotlight vanishes, replaced by a small red light. The trees all gasp and back away.)

TREE 2: That’s from a firethorn!

TREE 3: You’d better get home fast. That blight could kill you dead!

TREE 1: Firethorns are poison. You better get home soon.

BOY: I will, I will.

(He starts to march stage right, but hesitates. The lights are how they were near the beginning. His clock starts to tick again. He looks this way and that was.)

TREE 1: Are you lost?

TREE 2: You seem lost.

BOY: I am not lost! That’s ridiculous.

TREE 3: We could help if you are?

BOY: Well I’m _not_ lost!

TREES (together): But—

(The boy storms offstage)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no not me writing an actual play for FanFiction...... I am telling y'all now, though, the play is really important. The excerpts from it will be pretty short, but it is plot/ theme relevant I swear!!  
> Anyways my dumb ass really almost forgot to post today lmfao. Hope you enjoyed chapter two! See ya next week
> 
> they Are oNly beats. they Do not appreciate exquisite beauty…


	3. Luche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Disassociation.

Winry's face planted into a set of pillows feeling miserable. “I hate everything.” She told the pillow earnestly. 

It, as predicted, looked at her with it’s creases for eyes, fabric for a mouth and didn’t respond. Rude but expected. So she buried her head back into it with a heavy hearted groan, absently kicking off her shoes and socks, blindly throwing them into the abyss that was the carpet. They hit with a thump and the room was silent. Painfully so.

_ You don’t know me. _

She hadn’t wanted to start up any debate, really. There was no malice in the split second decision to linger outside and in all truth, the invite had made her heart absolutely soar with a sense of hope. 

Then he went and shut down again.

Her eyes felt hot, hands clutching at the knitted quilt spread out beneath her. It had been goodwill that drove her to speaking aloud the thoughts she'd been holding in for over a week, but the splendidness of truth didn’t apply when it wasn’t her decision to make. It was Edward’s and now she just felt upset and angry at the both of them: for her stubbornness and for his; for her not knowing how to say something but saying it anyways; for his casual assertion that being so isolated wasn’t even a concern; for the both of them being unequipped for this and feeling rage toward whatever puppet master pulled the strings on this grand, inhumane social experiment.

Maybe the idea of equivalence wasn’t as stupid as she’d thought. It could hold a bit of water, even if she still had a petty part of her that wanted to tear the theory to ribbons. It  _ could _ be real. Maybe that way Edward would at least get something out of all this.

Winry’s head had started to pound, the back of her throat winding up tightly like a pitcher ready to ruin someone’s career. On loop, his frantic admission played, alongside the brief encounter back in Resembool when she had been positive he was a single breath away from just  _ breaking _ .

_ You don’t know me. _

He said it without hesitation.

Winry wanted to punch the wall with all her might and let blood run down her knuckles after they inevitably split or drag the curtains off their rail so she could scream into them.

Or cry.

Mostly cry.

So she did.

Because no one else would, apparently, and because there had to be some kind of outlet.

She was upset. Simple things were complex and complex things were simple. It’s all the same. She was upset so the tears welled up as she kept her face pressed against the pillow and let it soak up the evidence.

The echo of someone tapping at the door poked a hole through the relative silence. For a brief, ill considered and implausible moment, Winry feared it might be the hotel staff. A voice chased that possibility away, alongside the fact that it was an ungodly hour of the night and the only employee still conscious was likely crying into their coffee.

“Winry?”

Al knocked again and she dragged herself upright, legs folded, still keeping her head squished down into her saltwater dampened haven. Winry opened her mouth to reply, but her voice wrapped itself around her throat and squeezed instead. Winry forced down a lump of discarded words that had formed. 

“Can I come in?” Al asked. She heard a metallic squeal from the doorknob.

(She’d given it a stern frown when she first opened the door. “Get your shit together.” She had told it. It screeched back cheerfully.)

Winry glanced up, her hair falling across her eyes and leaving blurry yellow dashes through her vision as though it were raining paint.  She let out a soft, muffled sound, crossed between an annoyed sniff and a teary croak as the door opened.

Al stepped inside hesitantly, easing the door shut even as it complained. “I was just wondering if you’d want to go for a walk in the morning—” Al’s footsteps were clear and not hollow. At times that fact was lost on her, after so long of hearing metal on metal when he walked. 

Winry ducked back down into the cushion with a soft, miserable hum of a sound, scrubbing the heel of her hand across her cheek and failing to get rid of the tracks staining them.

He immediately tensed. “What’s the matter? What happened?” 

Winry pushed back her hair, blinking hard and trying to pretend like she had a grip on her breathing. Which, to be clear, she did not. “Nothing. I don’t know.” Very eloquent. Her mind was buzzing, face flushed and eyes watery.

He sat beside her, the humble little bed dipping with his weight. She abandoned the pillow to sink into her hands with a voice-cracking exhale. “I hate you guys. All of you.”

“You do?”

“I always have to do  _ this _ .” She gestured to herself. “I always have to cry for you jerks. Carry your own weight for once and do it yourself.” She pointed at him accusingly. 

Al leaned back, expression muted like he had forgotten how to display an emotion that wasn’t already fading or tarnished in some way. “Okay, I’m lost.”

Winry scowled at nothing and continued to wish for some other outlet. Why couldn't she be the one to blow up a building for once? Why couldn’t she kick a military officer in the shins or drive her fist through a car door. 

None of her was made of metal. She knew it would hurt and there was a decent change she would end up in the hospital with broken fingers and bloody arms. She has been lucky to learn that lesson from afar—Al had forgotten about his new reacquired body of flesh and delicate bone when the brothers had first come home. He would end up lunging for things he couldn’t possibly lift, picking up trays without gloves, trying to break things over his knee then almost  _ breaking _ his knee, and even once throwing a hit at a tree, crumbling to the ground hissing out _ ow ow fuck ow _ .

Winry knew she wasn’t all that good at destroying, but  _ god _ did she want to sometimes. It was easier then feeling like  _ this _ .

Al’s face softened considerably. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No!” She hissed. “ _ I _ don’t want to talk about it. I want your  _ stupid brother _ to talk about it!”

Al’s lips quirked. “He’s not exactly... well, he is, but-”

“I know, I know.” 

Al hesitated, his expression loosened, voice gentle. “It’s weird for me too. I keep wanting to talk to him like I talk to  _ Brother _ but... I don’t want to be overstepping. It’s like that for you too, right?”

“ _ Right _ .” She wanted to sound angry, but it was weak and fragile. Al’s fingers slowly curled around her hand in a comforting, reassuring gesture. He’s always been good at conveying small things through even smaller motions, especially having lost access to facial expressions as a whole for years. He gave a light squeeze. Winry hung her head, breathing in through her nose and then letting it out in a puff.

“You know what’s silly?” Al mustered up a watery smile. “I’m kinda scared.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“I don’t know. Of caring? Like that will somehow be betraying Ed. I keep wanting to talk to him but what happens if I say too much? It could be bad in both directions; I could come off like I’m trying to replace his brother, or like I’m overlooking mine.”

“You could just ask.”

“And you could tell me why you’re upset.”

Winry scrubbed at her eyes with a scoff. “He’s doing the same thing you two do and I can’t stand it. I can’t—I’m sick of this. I hate crying because you’re too stubborn or  _ whatever _ to do it on your own.”

“What do you want to do, then?”

“I  _ want _ to go yell at him or something. Right now I’m just….” She faltered and looked down. “I’m kind of just taking it out on you. Sorry.” The carpet remained boring as her eyes flickered over to it.

“It’s okay.”

* * *

Ed discovered that his State Alchemist watch was more useless than he ever thought. The only things he’d ever used it for was as a paperweight and to get access to restricted materials. Turns out that breaking in works even better for one of those things.

His accomplice? Himself.

Round of applause, cymbal crash. The whole nine yards going up in a roar of comedy. Edward was the one who’d ask anyways, suggesting that they take a look through research notes and perhaps brush up on a little history before they go prancing into the basements of a bunch of high-tech-higher-security laboratories. Especially since it seemed all of Central was on a diet-lockdown. There were far too many MPs for it to be normal, but all Ed could do was assume that he was a little too used to the extreme lack of authority that came with hitchhiking across the border. There were check-ins at a few bridges and men armed with batons near the front doors of any government owned building.

They were still going to break in regardless. For fun and research. More the former. 

Mustang and his team were left out of the loop.

They’d been in Central for about three days and Mustang seemed content with taking the more…  _ legal _ route to information, alongside using this as a bit of a break. Ed could easily see why: they’d all been working themselves ragged for well over a month prior to this, and the strain of being in Resembool where everything was alien and they were outsiders of the highest order was understandably exhaustive. 

It was a farming town where everyone was neighbours and had a fist full of rotten fruits with the military's name on it. 

Being in Central, comparatively, was easy. Blending it was almost impossible  _ not _ to do, even for those trying to be noticed. Ed couldn’t really find it in him to hold it against them for taking a breather.

Aside from Mustang, because fuck ‘em.

The grand monument to classified material stood before him like a mountain just begging to be climbed. Ed would do one better.

He’d level it.

Edward shot him a sidelong glance. “Side door or back?”

Ed shook his head with a wolfish, sly grin. “Roof.”

It was amazing how little people paid attention to things, sometimes. If you stick you nose in the air and look like you’ve got places to be, no one says a thing. They slipped in without so much as a double take from anyone who happened to pass.

* * *

There had been some kind of sickness going around about ten years back, according to some newspapers. They’d found a small treasure trove of offset printing plates and gotten a bit acquainted with reading backwards text. It was easier than it sounded.

Some water had been contaminated and an illness spread through about five blocks.

Something about it must’ve caught Edward’s attention, because it seemed pretty unassuming to Ed.

The older—still weird—boy glanced over. “Does it say anything about the symptoms?” He asked, rising from where he’d been sitting against a metal cabinet with a catalogue of deaths and births in hand. He was skimming them fast enough to make Ed think he was looking for someone specific. 

Ed’s gaze returned to the plate, squinting at the dulled engraving and carefully spelling them out in reverse. “Yeah.” His finger traced over the metal stamp, catching on the words themselves. “Fainting, nausea, fever…” He looked up curiously.

His eyes narrowed in a critical way, like a wrench tightening around a bolt, ready to twist. “What area was it in?”

“Northwest. Spread through about—“ He checked the plate again with a long pause. “—four blocks, but they weren’t all next to each other. Just sort of spread out.”

“Sounds like this  _ contamination _ was red water. Or something similar.”

His eyebrow rose all on their own, mouth dropping open before he could correct it. “As in  _ philosopher's stone liquid diet edition _ ?” Ed asked.

He received a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe…?”

“I don’t remember that making people sick unless it was getting injected into them. But that would just kill most in a matter of minutes.”

“Yikes, they’re different then.” Edward blinked in mild horror, scanning over Ed as though he thought it might be an exaggeration. If only that were the case. “Red water was like a knockoff version of the stone. Chemical based and highly toxic. It couldn’t let you bypass any of the rules of alchemy, but it amplified it. They were working on it—“

“—in the fifth lab?” Ed finished.

He shook his head with a thin scoff. “ _ Telepathy _ .” His expression sobered. “You went there too, right?”

Ed nodded. “Yeah, but the only thing I found there was the array used for the actual stone, similar to the one down in the tunnels.”

“And the one I found was based on the designs from Ishval. They were going to compress red water into a stone. Well, actually  _ they _ weren’t going to…” He trailed off, expression dimming. Ed kept his mouth shut, knowing full well that if he himself was ever called on something like that he would either explode outwards or fold in. Edward shook himself back to reality. “Point is, it looks like it might’ve existed here too.”

“But not at the fifth lab.”

* * *

Navigating the tunnels was exactly as Ed remembered: endless and vaguely unsettling. Al and Winry had caught on to the fact that they were both missing in action and managed to track them down before actually getting underground.

“You always do this stuff without me.” Winry stated stubbornly. “Maybe I want to go to jail too one of these days.”

Edward paled slightly, but didn’t protest. They stuck to one another like four third wheels, all unsure and with one in particular straying close to the back. Ed wasn’t sure if it was intentional, or if he was just lost in thought.

* * *

Mustang blinked so slowly that Ed thought he’d fallen asleep while standing. An impossible feat, but if anyone could do it, it was Mustang. He waited, employing his age-old enemy  _ patience _ to keep from either snapping at the older man or flicking him between the eyes.

Breda and Havoc would likely have a fun time scraping their jaws off the floor while Al and Winry stood at his side, confident and unbothered by the shock they’d just mercilessly imposed on the group. Edward stood against the far wall, close to the door and face vacant of emotion.

Mustang’s face twisted up, mouth pressed into a line, waiting for his mind to catch up with reality. Ed just leaned back and waited.

“You  _ what?! _ ” He finally said in a disbelieving cry.

“Snuck into the second laboratory.” Ed repeated. “ _ Someone _ took the hinges from a door as a souvenir.”

Winry held up her rusted prize with an innocent smile. 

The older man looked half livid and half stupefied, like the answer had done the work for Ed and smacked him upside the head. Was verbal concussion a thing? This would be an excellent case study. Mustang’s voice rose. “You can’t be taking  _ risks _ like that!”

Luckily the hotel that the officers were in was more insulated and roomier. There were a private set of doors leading to the drinking equivalent of a study room, isolated and with a smattering of chairs lining the wall, accented by side tables and wide wooden coasters. Ed couldn’t fathom why they were there, though. The tables had ringlets of stains cross-hatching over their surface like a bunch of bronze chains.

Ed rolled his eyes with tectonic force—enough to power alchemy for years. (Unless that whole theory was actually a bust and there was a world they were stealing power from. Three cheers for goddamn string theory and migraines.) “It was  _ important _ —“

The Colonel cut him off. “And what if you got caught?”

“You know we’re better than that.” Al reminded sweetly. Bless his brother and the candy-coating he could put on even the snidest of comments.

“You still  _ could have. _ ”

“Could you back off and listen?” Ed snapped.

Mustang sighed, taking two steps back and dropping himself down onto a chair. “You’re going to give me a stroke one of these days.” He said, cradling the bridge of his nose between two fingers. Ed almost felt a little bad about the grievances he was causing, but was too caught up in the rush of all the information they’d drudged up—kicking and screaming, might he add—to have any sympathy. 

Ed smiled at the threat that, to him, doubled as a promise. “Nice. Anyways, did you hear about a little incident with water contamination about ten years ago?”

The Colonel breathed in carefully, through his nose and out in a slow puff of air. Ed had to admit it was sort of strange to see him attempting to stay calm when normally he would just let his maturity (if there as any) do a tuck and roll out of the nearest window and replace it with indignant shouting. They had an audience, though and Hawkeye had always been rather trigger happy when the two of them started to bicker. Even though she knew as well as everyone else that the antagonism had long since bled itself dry and had become more of an entertaining, snidely playful pastime. 

“Only a little in passing. People got sick, but no one died.” He sounded resigned, but attentive. 

“Why is it relevant?” Hawkeye asked. And  _ there _ went the forceful, chilled expression she usual wore. Right down the drain and replaced with hesitant, somewhat hopeful curiosity. Hawkeye shifted her weight, somehow feather-light over the worn out floors and head tilting to one side in thought.

“Well it was caused by this stuff called red water.” Ed explained. “It’s…” He shot a quizzical, pleading (in a strictly academic sense, of course) look to Edward.

He seemed terribly detached, leaning against the wall, and glaring at the ground as though this had nothing to do with him. Ed had noticed a little trend that made him uneasy: when the other boy would grow even vaguely animated and lively for split seconds, he’d shut down in a blink. In an  _ instant _ , any semblance of pathos or brilliance was replaced with a cold aura.

Edward avoided all the adult’s eyes, instead focusing on a spot on the far wall where a patron seems to have wanted to try boxing with their liver under extreme duress. “Philosopher's stone on a budget. Chemicals instead of people.” He simplified the information. “The material is still  _ useable, _ but unrefined. If a stone is a bomb than this would be a firecracker. Less powerful, less predictable.”

He never stopped being painfully tense. One arm was carefully tucked against his side and one couldn’t help but suspect that there was a reason for that beyond habit.

Ed wielded a smug smile pointed right at Mustang’s still-disapproving face. “ _ Thank you.”  _

The Colonel shook his head in exasperation and Ed’s smirk broadened just a little. “Why does any of that matter?”

“Because  _ we _ had never heard about this before. Unless you knew and never said anything.”

“It’s news to me.” Havoc muttered through his stupor.

“Doesn’t ring any bells, no.” Breda agreed. They were slowly collecting themselves, probably planning out how much it would cost to put their teeth back into place after they’d metaphorically cracked against the floor. Money in this case was mental fortitude, measured on a scale of bullshit tolerance converted into pounds. They’d both been hunkered down casually on the aforementioned chairs, Breda with his legs kicked up and hands cushioned behind his head, and Havoc hunched forward like he was trying to give himself  _ more _ back problems.

“So the red water exists here.” Mustang cut in, ire fully faded and hands laced together under his chin, propped up on his knees. “How does that help with figuring out this  _ other worlds _ situation?”

“ _ Because _ , dumbass—“ It earned him a dull glower. Mission accomplished. “—if the red water is here, then maybe alchemy was in Ishval and we just never knew about it. Maybe alchemy is  _ different _ and we never knew about it.  If the transmutation circles from Xerxes and Ishval both exist here, don’t you think that’s kind of important?”

“Important to an  _ anthropologist _ , sure.”

“Or a historian.” Havoc piped up. Winry kindly threw him a withering look. The man shrugged in response, kicking at the floor. “It’s true. I don’t see what this has to do with alchemy.”

“You’re not even an alchemist!” Ed shot back. “ _ The point is _ that the array from Xerxes and the uh… Grand Arcanum…?”

The other nodded once in affirmation.

Ed looked back to their little circus of a congregation. Excluding Hawkeye, obviously. “They’re both used to make philosopher's stones and are inherently connected to the gate. Both governments were looking for alternatives.” Ed cast a sidelong glance to his counterpart, inviting (or pleading) for him to join the conversation that could literally decide his fate.

He caved. “Only theory so far is that I got spat out on this side  _ because _ of the gate; figuring out how it works would help.”

Mustang’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to try to  _ make _ —“

“First off, fuck you.” Edward spat. “Second, this isn’t about the stone, it’s the history. Third, I  _ still _ don’t think this’ll work.”

The Colonel sat back, hands up in a placating gesture. “Right, okay.” The apology went unsaid, but Ed could see it emanating outwards. The other boy didn’t make any kind of eye contact.

“I take it you want to get into the archives. Well you already broke in to one place, what's stopping you from doing it again?”

It was Ed’s turn to stride across the space, plucking a coaster from its perch and tossing it to Mustang. He caught it with only a slight fumble. The man had gotten fast on the uptake, apparently. No doubt the skill was courtesy of Ed’s helpful knack for accidentally missing the waste basket whenever he had a loose paper in hand. “There was a fire, remember?” He pointed at the flimsy wood. “All that research is gone...” He trailed off.

“So why not go to the source?” Al finished.

“The ruins? You’re kidding.”

“We have enough time to make a round trip, actually.” Hawkeye mused aloud in an act of both betrayal and solidarity. She practically glided across the floor to the wall that housed the paper and pencil, pulling the little wooden split loose and tearing off a piece of paper.

Mustang buried his face his his hands with a groan. “Not you too.” 

She flipped the page over and started to write. “Sir, with all due respect you are welcome to go back to East City if you plan to complain.”

Ed back-pedalled to peer over her shoulder and found what looked like a list of supplies.

“None of you are obligated to come, by the by.” Edward said lightly. They all glared. He deflected it with a unapologetic half-shrug, one shoulder lifting while his expression remained malleable and mostly blank. There was a twinge (a _flinch_ ) that Ed couldn’t really figure out, but it hurried into hiding before he got a very good look. “It’s true. You’ve got better things to do than wander around the desert looking for alchemic felonies and piecing together two dissonance histories. One which I hardly remember. I’m perfectly content going alone. Or, better yet, not at all.”

The unsaid addition of  _ I would rather be alone  _ hung in the air for a moment.

“Which you won’t be.” Winry said with a challenging smile.

He sighed, shaking his head with one hand pushing his uneven, unexplainably short hair back. The strands fell back into place stubbornly. “ _ Fuckin _ ’  _ persistent _ .” He breathed. “Maybe I should invest in a weighted net.”

No one gave the off threat more than a moment to contemplate. 

“If you want to get more information about Ishval, there’s some community leaders that might be willing to help, but we’d need some time to get a meeting.” Mustang dug through his pockets, fishing out a little bundle of pages that was either a hit list or a tiny, bite-sized agenda.

“Xerxes is open though.” Came Ed’s counter.

“Open to bandits, yes.”

He held back from scoffing. Actually, no he didn’t. “ _ God _ you’re paranoid.”

“And I’m  _ right _ .”

“You’re inviting yourself along?” Al asked, voice high with amusement. Because no matter what anyone else said, no matter how many people declared that Al was the  _ nice _ one, or the  _ polite _ one, or any of the other things that Ed  _ wasn’t _ , he was still an Elric.  It meant at least  _ part _ of him was a whirlwind and there was nothing anyone could do about it. As if they could even try. Al was sweet enough to get away with… arson?

Aiding and abiding? Probably some second degree murder if he was really determined. 

“Is there a problem with that?” Mustang thumbed through his little book, a pen materializing out of another pocket and scratching down something, not bothering to look up. 

Edward raised his hand. “ _ Yes _ . I have a problem with that. Please don’t.”

“And why the hell not?”

“Because unless one of you wants to shoot me or something, I’m stuck here and all of you are wasting time.” Hawkeye flinched at that. Mustang paused, his eyes darting up while Al froze up like he’d been touched by the claws of some devil. 

“It’s like you don’t  _ want _ to try.” Winry grumbled.

“I  _ don’t _ .”

They collectively ignored him. “So we’ll need to stop into East City for a day or so.” Mustang muttered, jotting something down, motioning to Hawkeye. She passed him her own list of whatever they might need, nodding in approval before going back to scribbling. A formal apology to Falman and Fuery, perhaps. 

“My god. You’re all unbelievable.” Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Al, too, ignored him. “The only time I know of Ishval having alchemy was with _Scar_. His tattoos, I mean. So what about looking into alkahestry? It was used in that research...” His posture rightened, head raised. “Plus it could help to have a second opinion on everything.”

“Alkha- _ what? _ ”

“From Xing.” Ed threw another coaster at Mustang, the stained side thunking off his head. Theory confirmed: it’s empty up there. “I don’t know that much about the stuff, but if we can get someone who knows what they’re doing…”

“I can send for Mei to meet with us?”

“ _ Mei? _ ”

“Yeah, a friend of ours. Al’s, actually. She  _ might _ want to decapitate me, who knows. Don’t worry about it; she’s trustworthy. Violence incarnate dressed in bright pink.”

A fond annoyance that rang out un-policed in his voice. “That’s literally the opposite of assuring.”

“We are going to need to stop by East City to collect a few things. A vehicle, for starters.” All eyes turned to Edward. He hadn’t so much as shifted from where he stood, leaning against a wall, both hands hidden in his slightly too-long sleeves and he blinked at them, eyebrows raised. It only took a moment before he started to look incredibly uncomfortable.

“How does catching a train back east in two days sound?” Hawkeye asked.

He deflated a little. “When I say  _ persistent _ , I hope you all know it’s an insult.” 

* * *

The two days passed easily enough. Edward almost fell into a routine in the evenings, going for a long walk until he landed at some cafe or a shop that happened to have an insomniac owner. He made smalltalk and smiled whenever they asked where he was from.

(“You’ve got a lilt in your mouth, kid.”

“Oh?”

“An accent, I mean. Hitching on the words here and there, yeah? It sounds like you’re stealing from other languages.” The woman laughed to herself and slid him a paper cup filled with ginger and lemon flavoured water. He’d managed to catch himself before he’d asked if they had any Irish tea. That would’ve been a conversation he wasn’t awake enough to have. 

“I guess I do.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a charm, you know. Probably brings in all the cute youngins.” He didn’t have the heart to inform that hadn’t any interest in that. Not in the slightest. It was probably a slow night for her and he didn’t mind humouring. “Let me guess… Creta?”

He smiled. “A little farther than that.”)

Edward spent the train ride alone. The pressure on his side lessened and the pain between his ribs, needling towards his back where there still sat a grisly looking bolt of scar tissue. Nearly everyone else was asleep when Edward decided to slip into another one of the cars. The only one who had still been awake when he cracked open the door that would let him escape the proverbial suffocation was Hawkeye.

She didn’t try to stop him.

So Edward left and found himself padding along quietly, avoiding those who dozed in their seats and weaving around staff members. Eventually he reached the last door.

It opened into, as expected, an observation carriage, chairs with pillowed armrests facing a row of wide windows on each side. It was empty.

Maybe luck hadn’t abandoned him after all.

Edward, of course, watched the sky. It was all he could seem to do. 

_ (...one thing...) _

The stars were a constant and they’d grabbed him by the throat since he first arrived, viciously bright and glowing down at him with all the warmth of a forge. There was light, yes. The moon without its face still seemed to smile—maybe because it was carved down to a bright yellowed grin, severed by the earths own shadow until it was waxing. 

And yet, the sky enveloped all of that.

No matter how many stars there were, no matter how brilliant and friendly the moon or how many constellations were sketched out, the sky was always the canvas, so dark and overbearing that it dwarfed what light it held.

The sky drowned everything.

Edward tore his attention away from the black stretch of alien systems and space junk, pulling out the closest thing he had to a photograph and simply looking at it for a long time. It wasn’t anything more than paper and ink, some glue thrown in for good measure.

Reading put him to sleep.

* * *

Edward didn’t have many dreams these days. Instead he saw memories, playing out clear as day as though they’d been stamped onto cellophane or nitrate film—gun cotton, apparently. Who knew?—and played out on a projector. They were even in full colour, through admittedly blurred around the edges. When it wasn’t a memory, it was just a blank space.

The past moments that he slipped into were alway baffling as well. Because that’s what he was doing, after all.

_ Slipping _ .

Edward was slipping back into the past because the door was alway open and the undertow was strong in a welcoming way. A siren call, telling him how nice it would be to drown in the warmth of nostalgia and all the things that have a slight rosy tint, even when awfulness lurked around the corner.

The moments seemed to be plucked out of thin air. Because there he was, perched on a catwalk that he knew had been eaten by flames, elbows resting on the railing, legs crossed. He was gazing down at a stage while a man wailed over the dead Mimì, dead as she had been a million times before. 

“Why do you like this one so much?” He wasn’t even startled by Noah’s sudden appearance, toeing across the platform lightly, shoes missing and socks abound. There was a long swath of fabric draped over her arm, held in the crook of her elbow. It was late enough that they could hear wind whistling through the shingles, no longer having their melody foiled by the droning of traffic.

He shrugged. “Dunno what you’re on about. It was just going through dress rehearsals and I finished working through my prints early.”

“But why  _ this? _ ”

“What do you mean?”

“This play.” Her gaze wandered down to the stage. Mimì was still dead and anguished cries still came up in songful flurries like always. He’d memorized the stupid thing by now. Noah’s eyes were firmly set on the actors as they sobbed to an audience of two—plus the moths that fluttered around the stage lights. Her lips tilted down, face dulled and shadowed as she spoke. “You almost never watch the productions here more than once, but every time they do La Bohème you stay the whole time.”

“I don’t know. It’s just good.”

“Well,  _ Jubilee _ was good too, but you never watch that one when it’s in the rotation.”

He gave her a soft smirk, one eyebrow arched. “Eh. That’s up for debate—“

Instead of a laugh or playful frown, Noah looked away. The words died in Edward’s throat. She sat next to him, legs crossed beneath her, mindlessly throwing the blanket over her lap. Edward shifted a little closer and stole half for himself. It was an exchange they’d done a good deal of times before, though usually in reverse. She’d get a little too invested in the meta-drama during casting calls and petty director squabbles, and Edward would drag over a comforter before she lost any toes to the chilled drafts. They’d flipped the script this time.

_ Hah _ . Script.

She shook her head, fixing him with a questioning look. “I don’t get it, I really don’t. It’s sad. It’s a tragedy. Why keep watching the bad things that happen?”

He shrugged. “Maybe one day it’ll turn out.”

“It’s a tragedy, Ed. It’s already written.”

“Nah, someone could still change it. Who's gonna stop them?”

She paused for a moment, one hand fiddling and twirling the tips of her hair in thought. Noah shot Edward a sidelong, curious glance. “The playwright?” She suggested.

“He’s dead.” Edward told her. It was true. He had checked. Why, though, he wasn’t all that sure.

“Oh. I guess someone could, then.” 

There was nothing special to this moment. It was as mundane as anything else, yet here it was, projected onto his eyelids and painted in excruciating detail. No rhyme or reason, just memories that choose to rear their heads and remind him of another time.

Edward slipped and for now he was okay with that. There was something before all the carnage and would hold onto the simplicity like it was a lifeline.

The sun woke him a few hours later. 

The canvas was blue now and the stars were gone. 

* * *

Ah, East City.

The second left foot of Amestris. It made the nation trip more than once. But Roy couldn’t really deny is felt good to be in his own backyard. 

Hawkeye had made arrangements for them to have access to a military-issued truck. She somehow had managed to organize it rather quietly as well. If Roy didn’t know any better, he’d say this was outright smuggling.

But he did know better, and he knew that smuggling specifically meant the illegal moving of goods. This would technically fall under embezzlement. 

Oh well.

This really was just a pit stop, so none of the officers were all too keen on heading to Eastern Command and besides that, it would be a stupid move. An appearance from them would make people question why they’d run off to do whatever it was that Falman and Fuery fabricated in the first place. 

Which left them all spitballing on how to waste the day, trading ideas with varying validity as they left the train station. They were one short, however. 

Fullmetal had fallen off the face of the earth sometime during the night while they were all signing temporary contracts with comas. Hawkeye said he was still there, just bored and sleepless. It was becoming a trend with the kid: he never seemed to want to stay around them; he never seemed to exist more than corporeally, and even that was waning; he had intelligence up to his eyes and wit in spades, but it was muted. In a lot of ways, he was so very much like Ed.

Their words, their tone and glare. The way both of them had tics and traits: hands that would twitch, a brow that twisted, and a  _ spark _ . Between their ears, behind their eyes, burning outwards like a signal flare. Roy had known Ed for a long time. It made him feel old to say it—to even think it—but he had been watching the teen grow up for the past six years. Now he could read the kid without so much as checking the table of contents for guidance and he had also learned that not everything was the same.

Fullmetal wasn’t the same. He very clearly didn’t want to be here, each response a mix between careful and snappish. There was so much bubbling just under the surface, but Roy… couldn’t read it. Fullmetal flinched often and didn’t hold anyone’s eyes. Especially towards those dressed in blue.

Especially Roy.

( _ It’s stupid. It’s dumb. It’s none of your business and whatever hell that kid went through was enough without you prying for answers. And yet… _ )

It hurt. Just a little. 

Roy couldn’t really justify the feeling other then the fact that Fullmetal was nineteen and he was constantly on edge. He had the eyes of someone waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fact that someone Roy had known for six years was watching his hands like he was expecting a weapon to be pulled… hurt.

Maybe it was good that he’d vanished, though, because a group of four MPs were waiting on each platform, asking to see tickets and be sure they’d only been punched once. Just like in Central… it was strange.

Roy had caught sight of a few men climbing aboard the train with clipboards. 

“This is kinda weird, right?” Ed leaned over to whisper. “All the caution, I mean. Since when does the military keep tabs like this?”

“Not sure.”

Ed’s brow creased. “They’re marking down tickets.” He noted.

“Could be for some kind of travel census.” Roy said as lightly as he could. The line grumbled and slogged onwards until they got through.

Fullmetal had snuck off and subsequently avoided all this.

Speak of the devil and they’ll materialize behind you. Roy managed to not jump right out of his shoes at the sudden appearance, but that was to say nothing for the reaction it got out of Havoc and Breda.

Both looked like they were on the brink of fainting from the shock of it.

Roy kept his voice even as he spoke, shoulders turned inwards so that he could seem as unthreatening as he could. Because that’s what instinct was telling him to do and he’d caught Fullmetal’s eyes darting to his hands for the millionth time. “How’d you get through the inspection?”

He didn't answer.

* * *

It was an offhand comment by Fullmetal that brought the little discussion about engines grinding to a halt. Winry whirled to him. “What do you mean  _ break the atmosphere _ ? I thought gravity still existed?”

“Oh, right. You haven’t started on space travel yet.”

“Space travel?!”

* * *

Throwing things into space could actually work. Throwing real life human beings into space could work. Going to the  _ actual fucking moon _ and coming back could work. Who could have guessed?

Roy was still having trouble wrapping his head around it, even with a fresh coffee in hand and seated with his collection of subordinates and some idiot kids.

Luckily this particular little cafe seemed to be the exact definition of a hole in the wall and was barren, patrons wholly absent. The only other living soul was cashier, eyes glazed over by the exhaustion of a long shift.

“Okay.” Roy started, setting down his very dignified paper cup (there was a logo on the side featuring a bear wearing a hat and he wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it) and shutting his eyes. He managed to staple on a straight face to confront this charming little shitstorm of information, bluffing his way through it and acting like he didn’t want to pull out his hair. “Not that I’m doubting you because I know nothing about this but… how do  _ you _ know about all of this? And so much of it too.” Roy looked up, levelling a uncharacteristically non-demanding gaze at Fullmetal. Typically he’d been fine to bark out an order and be done with it, but now was far from typical.

“It was my job.” Fullmetal replied.” For the first while, anyways. Before they—anyways, yeah. Job.”

“Your…” Roy blinked slowly, face pinched in bafflement. It felt like there was a joke that he wasn’t in on. “…job?” He finished weakly.

Fullmetal blinked.

“You had a job?” Roy asked. He felt utterly dumbstruck. It shouldn’t even be that surprising—but that didn’t stop his eyes from expanding to the size of plates and blinking at a glacier-like pace.

“Yeah..?” Roy didn’t even have time to appreciate the fact that Fullmetal hadn’t shut down like he had done the last time Eurh-rope (or was is Europe? Euhroe? Irrelevant) had come up in conversation. The younger alchemist’s head tilted to one side in an almost familiar way. “Of course I had a job, I kind of  _ needed _ one. How else was I gonna pay rent.”

Roy absolutely  _ sputtered _ . “You paid rent?!”

“Would you stop sounding so  _ shocked? _ ”

The older man still felt like he’d been hit with a blunt object. Or maybe a bus. Perhaps one of the  _ rockets _ Fullmetal had mentioned casually, as though it weren’t pure insanity. “It’s just… shocking.” He sat back in a daze.

Winry had initiated this, so was only natural that she gained a sly, hopeful look at might as well have been drawn in blinding neon, spelling out a word starting with  _ a _ and ending in  _ utomail _ . “I guess you're pretty decent with mechanics then?” She asked, interesting cresting and leaning her chin onto the heel of her hand.

Fullmetal spoke quietly and was reserved, eyeing their surroundings. “Eh, give or take. Physics, mostly. Only a little chemistry, though, so I’m a bit rusty with alchemy.”

All the alchemists present looked to him expectantly. Fullmetal frowned. “No. Not now.”

Roy’s finger traces along the waxed edge of his silly paper cup, not directly looking at the kid but being sure that every word was politely, unobtrusively said. “There are a lot of alchemists around here. No one is going think it’s odd.”

Fullmetal sank a little lower into his seat. The boy’s eyes were razor sharp, streaked with a warning sign and his expression like a raging fire seen through a stethoscope and shitty binoculars—thrumming and quiet.

Al put on his patented, approved-for-market puppies eyes. “Why not?”

“MPs.” He wasn’t wrong in that: there were smatterings of civilians around with an unhealthy handful of navy blue caught in the mix. They stood with their backs ramrod straight, scanning and rescanning the area. It was unsettling to him, and Roy wouldn’t soon be forgetting the information Fullmetal had dropped like a tac onto a chair about the situation where he’d been.

_ (“They’d just take folk off the streets and shoot them. Or hang them. They hung a lot of people.” _

_ “Why?” _

_ “Because they could.”) _

Al let the matter drop.

Fullmetal, again, looked at his hands. The distrust was far from unfounded and Roy had no right to complain. 

Still... it hurt.

* * *

Daylight was precious and they were burning through it like a pack of animals would burn through unguarded crops. 

With the distinct lack of a vehicle that wasn’t Hawkeye’s newly abducted military truck—which would stick out more starkly than any doppelgänger or band of mismatched sock-humans—they were left with either individually hailing cabs or walking home. A blush of orange and red still smeared along the clouds that hung like a halo above the horizon’s crown, hauling itself up beyond the pointed spires of East City’s melodramatic architecture. 

Hawkeye volunteered to let Winry borrow her living room for the night while Ed and Al conspired to conduct a bonafide home invasion of Havoc’s place. Fullmetal was a few paces behind the rest of them, face just barely tilted up, searching the open air as though he expected one of the stars to suddenly fall. Maybe a few. Maybe all of them. Roy wanted to say something.

He didn’t.

Fullmetal blipped out of existence a few times as they went, vanishing for a few minutes like some back alleyway inhaled him before he would return as though he’d never left, head turned to watch the cars as they passed, headlights throwing splashes of orange and yellow across the walkway. Roy couldn’t tell if it was just his own scattered thoughts that was trimming the teen from the image; if the angle at which he was glancing over his shoulder made his vision narrow; if the shadowy spaces between overhead lights cast in the dark blues and indigo of dusk were just messing with how reality rippled, or if Fullmetal was just letting himself be sidetracked and catching up.

No one else seemed to notice, so he assumed it was a combination of the former, and yet Roy was certain the looped band of string he was fiddling with hadn’t been there before. 

Hawkeye’s place was closet, tucked up in a building that had seen better days but was decidedly friendly. She and Winry bowed out as Breda took a sharp turn off of the road towards his own humble stomping grounds.

Two blocks down was Havoc. Ed and Al were already clambering through the widow by the time the blond man was halfway through sorting the keys strung across a metal ring. Havoc cast a glance back at his commanding officer, who was currently a bit distracted, foot tapping impatiently, beating against the pavement steady enough to sound like a drummer going at a snare. “Boss?”

Roy shook himself. “Meet across from the restaurant where that guy stood you up. No uniform, no cigarettes.”

The blond man’s eyes narrowed. “This is why no one likes you.” He announced before whirling on his heel and kicking the door shut. From inside, Roy heard a crash and he wondered for a moment if the Elric brothers had already knocked the poor sod out.

Oh well. That’s none of his business.

Roy turned, ready to cut through a few back roads to get to his own building quicker, Fullmetal in tow, as per the unspoken understanding that if Winry was with Hawkeye, and if the duo of alchemy deities were breaking into Havoc’s house, than Fullmetal would have to steal Roy’s own couch. 

Or at least he had thought it was unspoken, but seeing as Fullmetal was already headed off, back turned, perhaps not.

Roy tensed and instinctively started to pad forward. “Hold on,” There were still enough time before night truly fell that cars freely skated down the road, headlights glaring.

Fullmetal didn’t bother to face him. He didn’t even pause. “What?”

“You know we all live here, right?” Roy followed, guided only by the light painted on by the vehicles whizzing past. The simple absence of the sun made the city feel deathly cold. Autumn was becoming winter and by morning there would surely be frost decorating window panes. Had it been a different time of year, he might have let the matter drop a little easier. 

He didn’t want the kid to freeze to death and his apartment had already become a den for Ed, Al, and occasionally Fuery (he raided Roy’s pantry twice and claimed it was because of all nighters skimming the audio tapes stored up from tapped lines). What trouble would one more person be?

It was a pragmatic response. Roy could already feel the sting of a restless breeze making his fingers numb and burning up his ears. It would only get worse as the night barrel onwards. Yes. Just logic.

“I am well aware.” His pace quickened, confident in the stubborn way that few could accomplish with only the sound of their heel hitting pavement.

Roy’s face hardened, voice stern. He didn’t fully realize it, but it was the tone he used in the office, directing subordinates and taking calls. It was a command, not a question. “So where are you going?.”

“What’s it to you? You’ve got your place. Go home.”

“And you’ll  _ what? _ ” Again, he was commanding, not asking. It was a stupid move, but Roy didn’t have any other tricks up his sleeve besides this and—and logically, it’s what he should do. Yes, that was all it would ever be. Logic.

“I’ll do whatever I want because it’s none of your business.” He said calmly. The gurgling of an ill-kept engine split the air as it rattled along the cobblestone. 

“It  _ is _ my business, actually.”

Fullmetal scoffed in kind. “Go  _ home _ .” The word  _ home _ had never sounded like some kind of vile curse before. It did now. “Just drop it.”

“ _ Drop it? _ ” He repeated incredulously.

“Look at that, the Flame Alchemist pretending to care. Quite the performance, but I’ve seen better.” His eyes flared for a split second, looking over his shoulder without slowing down. “You don’t know shit about my life, you don’t get to play the all-knowing-Colonel card. I’m leaving, you’re not going to follow.”

“I’m—I’m not  _ playing _ at anything.”

“Aren’t you always?” Fullmetal spat.

Roy kept himself collected and hoped his skill in persuasion would be enough to win this. “Not always.”

The blond cracked a bitter smile, only seen at the corner. Persuasion was a no go. He was relying on experience now, stepping through a minefield with a blindfold and hoping muscle memory would save him. Because as good as he was in convincing, lying, planning and plotting, he was terrible with the truth. And the truth was he didn’t want a kid to feel the need to choose camping out on the streets over Roy’s apartment for  _ one _ night.

He didn’t want to be that big of a threat.

“Sounds like a lie.” Fullmetal’s steps kept going, one after the other in a glitchy pattern of flesh against prosthetic. 

“ _ Fullmetal _ —“

“Do  _ not _ call me that.” He whirled around with a snarl, both hands curled into fists at his sides, expression washed in something fiery. “You’re  _ not _ my commanding officer. You never have been so don’t even fucking try that.” Fullmetal’s eyes were  _ burning _ like something had been set ablaze inside him.

Roy froze, mouth snapping shut at the outburst. There was a lot of anger. So,  _ so _ much rage it was shocking. But something else was bleeding through, stark against the waves of frustration. Regret? No, a little to the left. Perhaps it could be guilt—wait, no, that wasn’t it either. 

It… was just grief, wasn’t it? 

A voice told him to back down and for the first time in years, he listened to it. Roy held up his hands in a surrender. “Okay—okay, you’re right. I was out of line.” He inhaled, watching Fullmetal’s expression fade into something more typical and neutral and horribly  _ not like Ed _ . How long would it take until that fact well and truly sunk in? Maybe this would be the moment when it clicked into place. “The offer still stands, though.”

“The answer is still a no.” Two pairs of trucks ran past them, tarps tied over the backs and lights bright yellow. The woven sheet made a harsh fluttering sound right before they wheeled around the corner and disappeared into East City’s gaping maw. Normally tarps stayed locked down while travelling. Had they been  _ searched _ —

Roy relinquished the commanding voice. “But you can’t just wander around. I’m not offering as a commanding officer or peer or friend. I’m offering as an adult who doesn't want a  _ child _ to be out on the streets all night.”

Fullmetal barked out a laugh. “I’m hardly a child.”

He wished he could be louder, but Roy could only reign in his voice to a careful call. Shouting wouldn’t do any good. “Yes you are. Whether you like it or not, you are still a kid.”

The blond sighed and gave a sympathetic glance. “I get it.” He said, making sure that the words were said clearly, shot through the air as though from a slingshot and finding their target so easily Hawkeye would’ve been impressed. “You feel shitty and think this will fix something. It won’t. I’m not going to be an accessory to your guilt so _stop trying;_ just go home already. I don’t need  _ you _ hovering over my shoulder. It’s pity and I sure as hell don’t need it. Not from you.”

“That’s not why—“

He looked Roy dead in the eyes as he cut off the words. Roy steeled himself. “I won’t say I could even start to understand any of this because I never could.” He meant it. “But that’s no reason to give yourself frostbite.”

Roy meant it. He really did, even under all his usually layers of duplicity that he wore like second skins and coats upon jackets upon uniforms. Even with years of lying under his belt, he meant it.

Fullmetal stilled. His face was blank, unreadable in a way that Ed’s never was and exhausted in a way that no one so young should be. It soaked the teen from head to toe, skin to bone and nearly doused his eyes. He didn’t just look tired, as Roy had previously been hissing to himself. Fullmetal  _ was _ tired.

But the spark was there. Roy tensed, anticipation and hope tugging at that little spot in his (increasingly spacious) heart that held a little sign reading  _ Reserved for Elrics _ .

They were kids. Fullmetal was a kid. Didn’t he deserve a break too?

The younger alchemist inhaled and gave Roy a dimmed, slim smile. He felt a little bit of triumph creep into his chest and then the bomb dropped.

“No.”

It exploded outward softly. Fullmetal turned and left without another word.

Yes, still hurt.

But it  _ clicked. _

* * *

Edward didn’t look back when he left. He didn’t regret it either.

(A little.)

Not at all. Nope. There was no tugging voice telling him to stop being stubborn and accept the help being offered to him by one of the few people back in his own world that he had actually trusted. Respected, in a weird sort of way. Mustang was a prick, a wet sock of a man, a professional liar, and about a thousand other things that Edward would easily be able to lob at his head as insults. But he cared, in a lopsided, strange way.

That was still more than most people.

Edward’s head tipped back to do the thing he always did: look at the sky. It was dull here, like it tended to be in cities. The stars above still shone with the radiance of spotlights aimed at a stage. Lamps were sparking, lit up by bright orange glows that dodged shadows and buzzed around like a little swarm of fireflies.  _ Fire _ .

Edward sighed with an inward grimace, head dropping down to hang. He could rationalize it all he wanted beyond shallow emotionality, but at the end of the day it was the simple fact that the Colonel had fire at his beckon call that made Edward rather be anywhere else. Trust was a fickle, fluid thing that Edward didn’t have much control over at this point. It squirmed and coiled up; it would unfurl in the most unexpected moments.

_ Like betting his very heart on the green of a roulette _ . 

It was a dangerous thing, trust, so Edward was sort of glad it was wary and slow to raise its head. That would make all of this easier. From searching for answers to the enviable failure. From thinking there was another way to Edward disappearing again, off to whatever nation they wouldn’t expect him to stray to.

_ Run. _

Edward weaved through the grid-like streets while his mind wandered alongside it. He slipped, and suddenly the streets were a little duller, less saturated with the inherent warmth of Amestris and it’s alchemy-doused existence. There wasn’t any proof besides, his own two eyes, but Edward was positive that things were somehow brighter here.

With a few exceptions.

The stars that had been spilled across his arm by a wayward paintbrush, for example, were more vibrant than any flower bed he’d seen throughout the eastern countryside. He closed his eyes and…slipped.

Edward heard voices that were familiar. None of the words were clear, pulled from a memory haphazardly, but it was clearly  _ them _ . 

He picked up his pace and found a little one-floor bed and breakfast. The young girl at the counter looked him up and down before hopping off her stool, pointing to a door that was hanging for dear life off a single hinge, only bound to the wall by one screw while the plaster lining the frame was too cracked to repair without a good few extra marks— _ cenz _ ,  _ you idiot _ — lying around waiting to be used.

“Can you fix this?” She asked. Edward raised an eyebrow at the girl and she raised one right back, still pointing. “You’re an alchemist, right?”

Edward almost laughed as her foot started to tap impatiently. “Are you clairvoyant?”

The tapping increased enough that her hair started to sway along with it. “You don’t have enough for a night, do you.”

He returned the gesture, both shoulder lifting and a smile pulling at his mouth. She couldn’t have been more than twelve and Edward was reminded why kids were the  _ best _ : they didn’t take anyone's shit. Good for them. God, he’d been her age, hadn’t he? When so much went wrong. Hindsight was a hell of a thing and he winced inwardly at the cruel little epiphany before looking back to the girl. Her finger never faltered, aimed at the door as it continued to offend both of them for different reasons.  _ She _ probably had to worry about it deciding  _ no, actually, I think I’ll lay on the floor right about now _ , while Edward couldn’t help but cringe at how decrepit it looked compared to the tiny entrance and lovingly worn welcome mat.

“You can have the room at the end of the hall if you fix it.” She said.

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! I hope you've had an alright week and that the chapter is enjoyed!  
> I know this has been a little bit of a slow start, but it picks up pretty significantly in the next chapter! Plot stuff!!! yeehaw!  
> Also yes, I am slipping in some of that Nice acearo Edward content. as a treat...  
> Anyways! See ya later!
> 
> you Mean to read it? i’ll frEeze

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back folks! It's finally begun...  
> I'm both very excited and very nervous about this fic but I do hope y'all end up enjoying it!
> 
> Also I'm going to try to link all the art done for Capra since I finished posting it, but if I missed any please let me know!!! 
> 
> [1](https://ta1k-less.tumblr.com/post/643486670060208128/my-friend-makes-rings-she-swirls-and-sings-shes) [2](https://velvetcake96.tumblr.com/post/640628560185425920/once-again-im-making-art-for-liathgray-but-this) [3](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/641428850718507008/vent-art-but-its-me-so-ofc-it-turned-into-fan) [4](https://anachronistic-atoner.tumblr.com/post/640145127587872768/so-i-drew-03-ed-from-capra-by-liathgray-their) [5](https://netydraws-blog.tumblr.com/post/640057379468279808/for-a-moment-he-was-falling-artwork-based-on) [6](https://levhach.tumblr.com/post/631168552426143744/ive-been-obsessed-with-liathgray-s-fics) [Link text](https://x-rainflame-x.tumblr.com/post/631009414524157952/you-wanna-run-away-run-away-and-you-say-that-it) [7](url) [8](https://magmatickobaian.tumblr.com/post/627642425692864512/inspired-by-capra-by-liathgray-weve-finally) [9](https://raisans-art.tumblr.com/post/627843536631529472/more-capra-business-from-liathgray-this-time) [10](https://bisexualization.tumblr.com/post/628099000107679744/a-commission-for-liathgray-s-fucking-capra-fic-i)
> 
> (what beautiful eYes you have! and yOu have sUffered, too!)


End file.
